-    LIBRARY 

OF   THE 

Theological   Semi-nary, 


JDJ3Ti\rr:KTOTNL    N.J. 

BR  100  .U64  1873 


<_    Upham,  Thomas  Cogswell 

1799,-1872.  ' 

s  Absolute  religion 

Hook, 


ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 


A  VIEW  OF    THE    ABSOLUTE    RELIGION,  BASED  ON    PHILO- 
SOPHICAL PRINCIPLES  AND  THE  DOCTRINES 
OF  THE  BIBLE. 


J  BY 

THOMAS  C.  UPHAM,  D.D.,  LL.D. 


AUTHOR    OF 

LIFE    AND     RELIGIOUS     OPINIONS     OF    MADAME    DE    GUYON, 

"A     SYSTEM     OF     MENTAL     PHILOSOPHY,'"      "  THE 

INTERIOR    OR    HIDDEN    LIFE,"    ETC.,    ETC. 


NEW    YORK: 

G.    P.    PUTNAM'S    SONS, 

FOURTH    AVE.    &    TWENTY-THIRD    STREET. 
I  3/3- 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1873,  by 

THOMAS  C.  UPHAM, 
in  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


Wm.  McCrea  &  Co.,  Stereotypers,  lanue,  Littlk  &  Hillmak, 

PRINTERS, 

Newburgh,  N.  Y.  10s  TO  1U  WoosTIiR  StrekT)  n. 


TO  THE  READER. 

This  Volume,  entitled  the  Absolute  Religion, 
comprises  some  of  the  unpublished  writings  of 
THOMAS  C.  Upham,  deceased.  An  amanuensis  had 
been  engaged  to  copy  his  manuscripts,  written  with 
pencil,  the  day  preceding  an  attack  of  paralysis,  May 
20th,  187 1.  This  paralysis,  causing  blindness  of  one 
eye,  and  general  debility,  rendered  him  unable  to 
give  any  farther  attention  to  the  work.  A  second 
attack  of  paralysis,  as  he  was  rising  from  his  bed  on 
the  morning  of  March  10th,  1872,  terminated  his 
life  April  2d  1872,  six  o'clock  a.  m.,  at  the  age  of 
seventy  three  years.  During  these  three  weeks  of 
prostration  he  was  unable  to  articulate  distinctly. 
The  only  connected  sentence  clearly  understood  is 
this  :  "My  spirit  is  with  God." 

Several  chapters  of  the  work  were  left  partly 
written,  and  of  other  chapters,  only  the  headings 
and  leading  thoughts  remain.  The  fact  that  the 
author  did  not  complete  the  work,  must  be  received 
as  an  apology  for  any  lack  of  completeness,  in  the 
outline,  arrangement  and  finish  of  the  work.  The 
aim  of  the  author  seems  to  be  to  unfold  and  to  har- 
monize as  far  as  may  be,  religious  views  and  opin- 
ions, by   explaining   them  on   the  basis  of  a  sound 


IV  TO   THE  READER. 

philosophy,  in  the  hope  that  some  minds  might  be 
benefited  by  such  a  philosophical  statement.  The 
aim  is  a  great  one.  And  the  philosophic  and  chris- 
tian man  who  loves  to  see  God  in  providence,  and 
God  in  man,  and  religion  a  reasonable  service,  will 
appreciate  this  effort  of  one  who  made  the  study 
of  man  in  his  mental  powers  and  capacities,  the  one 
great  study  of  his  life  ;  and  whose  highest  aim,  in 
every  practical  way,  was  to  benefit  by  word  and 
deed  his  brother  man. 

The  responsibility  of  issuing  such  a  work,  which 
the  author  did  not  complete,  and  which  he  did  not 
himself  revise,  is  only  balanced  by  the  desire  that 
good  may  be  accomplished  however  imperfect  the 
work. 

The  following  sentences  are  an  extract  from  his 
preface  to  "  Divine  Union  "  a  work  published  by 
him   in  1857,  and  are  appropriate  here. 

"  In  writing  this  work  I  have  no  private  or  party 

interests  to  subserve,  but  only  wish  to   do,  what   I 

may  seem,  in   the   providence  of  God  called  to  do, 

for  that    cause    of  Christ,   of  God,   and    humanity, 

which  is   dearer  to   me   than    anything    else.     And 

this  is  a  consolation  which  always  attends  me, — the 

full  belief  that  the  truth  will  live  and  do  the  good 

appropriate   to  it,  and   that  all  error  will  and  must 

die." 

PHCEBE  LORD  UPHAM. 
New  York,  May,  1873. 


CONTENTS. 


I. 

TAUE 

The  Absolute  Religion  considered  in  connection  with 
the  Doctrines  of  the  Bible,  especially  the  Teach- 
ings of  Christ' .        .9 

II. 
The  Personality  of  God 20 

III. 
God  as  Life 32 

IV. 
Identity  of  Life  and  Love 3S 

V. 
God  as  Unity  and  Duality .45 

VI. 

The  Son  of  God 68 

VII. 
Necessity  and  Possibility  of  a  Divine  Manifestation        .     79 

VIII. 
Christ  as  the  Fulfilment  of  the  Law       ....        88 

IX. 
The  Second  or  New  Birth 95 


viii  CONTENTS. 

X. 

PAGE 

Relation  of  the  First  to  the  Second  Birth        .        .        .  102 

XL 

Relation  of  Moral  Evil  to  Freedom,  and  its  Remedy    .      116 


XII. 

The  Divine  Purposes 128 


XIII. 

Universality  of  Religious  Thought 138 

XIV. 
Harmony  of  Religiour  Opinions 147 

XV. 
Optimism 154 

XVI. 
The  Objective  and  Subjective  in  Religion  .        .        .        .163 

XVII. 
Unities  and  Diversities        .  169 

XVIII. 
View  of  the  Doctrine  of  Sacrifices      .        .        .        .        .179 

XIX. 

Growth  of  the  Idea  of  God 185 

XX. 

Of  the  Satisfaction  of  Divine  Justice         .        .        .        .191 


CONTENTS.  ix 

XXI. 

PAGE 

The  Doctrine  of  a  Judgment   affirmed   by  Absolute 

Religion J95 

XXII. 
The  Doctrine  of  Heaven  and  Hell 199 

XXIII. 

Of  the  Sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost,  or  the  Sin  which 

cannot  be  forgiven 209 

XXIV. 

Prayer  in  its  Relation  to  the  Absolute  Religion  .        .      215 

XXV. 
Relation  of  Faith  to  Salvation 222 

XXVI. 
Divine  Influences 22§ 

XXVII. 

Explanation  of  Existing  Practical  Methods  of  Teach- 
ing       . 235 

XXVIII. 
Contrasted  Views  of  the  Selfish  and  Essential  Life    .      242 

XXIX. 

Mediatorialism  as  a  Universal  and  Practical  Principle  .  251 

XXX. 

Explanation  of  Terms  Regarding  the  Essential  Life    .      262 


x  CONTENTS. 

XXXI. 

PAGE 

Evidences  of  the  Existence  of  the  Essential  Life    .        .  268 

XXXII. 

The  Essential  Life  Reaches  to  all  Existences         .      .      280 

XXXIII. 
The  Power  of  the  Essential  Life 288 

XXXIV. 

Locality  of  God  and  the  Moment — Personal  Experi- 
ence   '. 297 


Absolute    Religion  . 


CHAPTER   I. 


The  Absolute  Religion  considered  in  connection  with 
the  doctrines  of  the  Bible,  especially  the  teachings 
of  Christ. 

i.  It  is  not  difficult  for  the  reflecting  mind  to 
see,  in  the  currents  of  thought  which  characterize 
the  present  period,  a  tendency  to  bring  into  notice, 
and  to  give  emphasis  to  what  is  called  the  Absolute 
Religion.  Many  persons,  who  would  not  willingly 
be  regarded  as  irreligious,  have  expressed  a  desire 
for  a  religion  founded  upon  the  exercise  of  reason 
and  upon  philosophical  principles,  and  not  exclu- 
sively or  chiefly  upon  authority.  The  utterance 
which  is  heard  in  this  direction,  is  every  day  grow- 
ing louder  and  more  imperative.  It  is  the  expres- 
sion of  the  views  and  feelings  of  persons  whose  sin- 
cerity cannot  well  be  doubted  ;  and  who,  at  least, 
have  a  claim  upon  our  respect  for  the   intellectual 


I0  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

ability  which  they  have  often  manifested.  It  is  an 
utterance,  therefore,  whether  addressed  to  us  as 
Christians,  or  merely  as  men  of  thought  and  philo- 
sophic inquiry,  which  cannot  wisely  be  allowed  to  go 
unheeded. 

2.  The  first  inquiry  which  claims  our  attention, 
is,  What  are  we  to  understand  by  the  Absolute 
Religion  ?  It  is  perhaps  proper  to  say,  that  the  an- 
swer to  this  question  will  be  likely  to  develop  itself 
more  fully  and  satisfactorily  in  the  course  of  the  dis- 
cussions which  are  to  follow.  And  yet  a  few  words 
on  the  subject  may  properly  be  said  here.  In  the 
first  place  it  may  be  remarked  in  general  terms  and 
without  going  minutely  into  reasons,  that  the  Abso- 
lute Religion  is  that  religion  which,  harmonizing 
with  the  truths  and  requisitions  of  God  on  the  one 
hand,  and  with  the  nature  of  man  as  related  to  God 
on  the  other,  is  necessarily  as  wide  in  its  extent  and 
its  application  as  humanity  itself; — a  religion  which 
neither  limited  by  geographical  boundaries,  nor  de- 
pendent for  its  existence  on  civil  and  political  enact- 
ments, is  the  inheritance  of  all  men  equally,  what- 
ever their  name  or  place  or  condition,  by  virtue  of 
their  common  nature.  In  other  words,  it  is  a  reli- 
gion which  is  universal. 

In  the  second  place,  it  is  that  religion  which 
finding  its  subjective  expression  in  ideas  rather  than 


ABSOLUTE  RELIGION.  H 

in  sensations,  and  in  those  ideas  which  are  fundamen- 
tal in  themselves  and  in  their  relations,  vindicates  its 
claim  to  Absoluteness,  because  it  is  unchangeable  ; 
and  is  therefore  the  religion,  not  only  of  all  men  and 
all  nations  but  of  all  time  and  all  ages.  That  reli- 
gion, which  is  found  to  be  merely  an  incident  of  a  na- 
tion's or  people's  history,  and  which  passes  away 
with  the  transition  of  the  temporary  circumstances 
on  which  it  is  founded,  fails  to  present  any  just  claim 
to  this  character  of  immutableness  and  universality. 
The  Absolute  Religion  is  something  very  different 
from  this.  Founded  in  the  nature  and  constitution 
of  things,  but  harmonizing  with  the  thought  and 
sustained  by  the  power  of  the  highest  Intelligence 
in  the  universe,  and  being  revealed  to  human  appre- 
hension by  means  of  fundamental  and  universal  ideas, 
which  speak  inwardly  and  intuitionally  and  with  a 
voice  of  authority,  it  is  necessarily  a  religion  which 
exists  everywhere,  and  exists  forever.  No  antagon- 
isms of  the  changeable  and  the  finite,  no  chance  nor 
change,  which  mars  the  face  of  human  affairs,  nor 
hardness  of  heart,  nor  slowness  of  belief,  can  triumph 
over  the  truth  and  supremacy  which  are  its  basis. 

3.  Characterized  by  universality  in  its  extent  and 
application,  and  by  permanency  in  duration,  it  has  al- 
so this  distinctive  and  paramount  feature,  that  it  car- 
ries with  it  a  binding  and  controlling  obligation  upon 


12 


ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 


the  thoughts,  feelings  and  actions  of  all  men  and  of 
all  moral  beings,  by  a  virtue  or  power  which  is  lodged 
in  itself,  and  not  by  means  or  in  virtue  of  any  power, 
authority  or  command  outside  of  itself.  It  may  be 
aided  by  such  outside  influences  but  is  not  neces- 
sarily dependent  upon  them.  Its  authority  is  its 
own  ;  its  word  is  law.  It  may  not  be  out  of  place  to 
make  the  explanatory  remark  here,  that  there  is  a 
great  difference  between  a  thing  considered  in  its 
own  nature,  and  its  announcement  or  revelation. 
The  thing  or  object  in  question  presents  itself  in  one 
aspect  ;  the  announcement  of  it  in  another.  For  in- 
stance, the  announcement  of  the  Absolute  Religion 
may  have  occurred  at  a  particular  period  or  in  a  par- 
ticular country,  in  the  era  of  Moses,  or  in  the  era  of 
Christ,  at  Sinai  or  at  Jerusalem,  at  Rome  or  Athens, 
or  in  other  periods  and  in  other  countries  ;  but  the 
thing  itself,  the  religious  truth,  involved  by  a  sort  of 
eternal,  generation  in  the  great  facts  of  the  universe, 
has  no  time  or  place,  no  beginning  or  end. 

4.  Such,  in  general  terms  is  the  Absolute  Reli- 
gion. This  religion  has  had  its  interpreters  in  all 
ages  of  the  world  ;  men  who,  with  different  degrees 
of  mental  illumination,  have  attempted  to  give  ex- 
pression to  the  great  religious  thought,  written  in 
the  hieroglyphics  of  universal  nature  ; — Socrates, 
Plato,  Cicero,  Seneca,  Confucius,  Zoroaster,  Sakya- 


ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 


13 


Mouni,  and  many  others,  who  have  seen  some- 
thing of  the  great  interior  light,  which  is  destined  in 
the  progress  of  its  rising  to  illuminate  all  lands,  and 
to  harmonize  all  moral  and  religious  separations.  I 
allude  to  these  men  who  seem  to  me  to  have  been 
to  some  extent  the  subjects  of  a  divine  guidance,  in 
no  lightness  of  spirit,  but  with  a  sincere  reverence 
and  gratitude.  Each  in  his  degree  and  place,  and 
in  reference  to  his  age  and  country,  may  be  regarded 
as  having  a  divine  mission,  and  as  being  in  some  im- 
portant sense  the  minister  of  God.  Nevertheless 
there  came  in  the  fullness  of  time  a  Man  who  was 
greater  than  these.  If  I  have  studied  him  aright  in 
what  has  been  left  us  of  his  life  and  doctrines,  the 
great  teacher  of  the  Absolute  Religion,  and  stand- 
ing far  above  all  others  in  the  measurement  of  his 
insight,  is  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  The  highest  and  most 
reliable  expression  of  the  Absolute  Religion  is  found 
as  it  seems  to  me  in  his  wonderful  words. 

5.  The  object  of  the  present  work,  undertaken 
with  much  mistrust  of  myself  but  in  the  hope  that 
it  will  be  found  to  harmonize  with  the  truth,  is  not 
only  to  announce  some  of  the  leading  doctrines  of 
the  Absolute  Religion,  but  to  show  their  identity 
with  the  doctrines  of  Christ.  The  religion  of  Christ, 
which  is  only  another  name  for  the  principles  involv- 
ed in  the  teachings  of  Christ,  is  the  Absolute  Reli- 


14  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

gion  ;  because  having  incarnated  itself  in  Christ  and 
thus  shown  its  divine  beauty  in  the  human  form,  it 
henceforth  belongs  to  man,  not  perhaps  in  the  tem- 
porary and  changing  incidents  of  his  history,  but  to 
man  in  his  essential  and  universal  nature,  and  there- 
fore is  the  religion  of  humanity.  The  religion  of 
Christ  is  the  Absolute  Religion  because,  though  it 
may  be  said  in  its  personal  applications  to  grow  up 
and  to  put  forth  the  buds  and  flowers  of  feeling,  the 
rich  and  beautiful  experiences  of  emotions  and  af- 
fections, it  nevertheless  has  its  root  in  the  deepest 
thought,  and  is  both  grounded  in,  and  harmonizes 
with,  unchangeable  intuitions.  The  religion  of 
Christ  is  the  Absolute  Religion,  though  man  is  its 
object,  and  is  also,  in  the  exercise  of  his  powers  of 
perception  and  reasoning,  the  appointed  and  neces- 
sary instrument  of  its  development,  yet  being  found- 
ed in  the  nature  and  constitution  of  things,  and  thus 
being  beyond  measurements  of  time,  it  synchronizes 
with  God  himself  in  its  origin  and  continuance,  and 
goes  step  by  step  with  the  divine  authority  in  the 
assertion  of  its  universal  empire. 

6.  I  am  aware,  that  the  high  claims  now  put 
forth  in  favor  of  the  religion  of  Christ,  considered  in 
its  relation  to  the  absolute  truth,  are  not  always  al- 
lowed by  that  class  of  thinkers  and  inquirers  to  whom 
allusion  was  made  in  the  beginning  of  the  chapter. 


ABSOLUTE  RELIGION.  I  5 

And  what  is  more,  they  are  not  always,  and  perhaps 
not  generally  insisted  on  by  those  who  are  distinct- 
ively and  truly  known  as  Christians.  Not  unfre- 
quently  the  Christian  says,  as  if  conscious  of  his  ina- 
bility to  stand  firm  in  the  great  battle  of  thought, 
and  willing  to  find  the  first  refuge  that  presents 
itself,  that  the  religion  of  Christ,  standing  on  a  basis 
peculiar  to  itself,  may  be  regarded  as  above  and 
beyond  reason.  I  confess  that  I  hesitate  in  the 
acceptance  of  such  expressions.  So  far  from  this 
being  the  correct  view,  there  is  a  sense  undoubtedly, 
in  which  it  may  be  affirmed  without  presumption, 
that  there  is  nothing  above  reason  ;  neither  God  nor 
the  creatures  of  God  ;  neither  men  nor  angels  ; 
neither  finite  nor  Infinite.  If  it  be  admitted  that 
God  exists,  it  is  still  true,  that  he  is  not  available  to 
us  as  an  existence,  and  is  not  known  to  us  as  an  ex- 
istence, and  his  existence  cannot  be  logically  affirm- 
ed and  accepted,  except  through  the  instrumentality 
of  perception  and  reasoning.  If  indeed  by  reason 
be  meant  that  sad  semblance  of  reason,  which  by  its 
own  action  is  separated  from,  and  is  not  enlightened 
and  aided  by  contact  with  the  everlasting  truth  ;  in 
other  words,  that  form  of  reason  or  semblance  of  rea- 
son, which  in  being  separated  from  the  great  Source 
and  Guide  of  all  our  faculties  is  perverted  by  igno- 
rance, prejudice,  and  passion,  then  the  matter  pre- 


:6  absolute  religion. 

sents  itself  in  another  aspect,  and  is  entitled  to  an- 
other answer.  But  reason  in  the  true  sense,  reason 
in  the  greatness  of  its  intuitional,  as  well  as  its  rela- 
tional and  inductive  movement,  reason  such  as  God 
is  able  to  incarnate  inspirationally  in  the  thought 
and  intellect  of  man,  has  nothing  above  it.  True 
reason  is  God's  highest  thought  ;  it  holds  a  position 
which  it  cannot  change  ;  it  sustains  an  office  which 
it  cannot  abnegate  ;  and  the  whole  universe  is  not 
only  dependent  upon  it  for  its  revelation  as  an  object 
of  knowledge,  but  in  all  its  coming  progress  accepts 
its  aid,  and  marches  in  harmony  with  it. 

7. — Let  it  be  understood  furthermore,  that  we 
have  no  controversy  with  much  of  that  which  is 
known  in  the  history  of  human  knowledge  under 
the  name  of  philosophy.  The  philosophers  have 
had  their  time  of  affirmation  ;  and  undoubtedly  they 
have  said  instructive  things  on  a  great  variety  of. 
subjects.  They  have  felt  at  liberty  to  speak  with 
boldness  on  the  subject  now  before  us  ;  and  some- 
times with  a  smile  of  incredulity  and  even  of  opposi- 
tion on  their  lips,  as  if  it  were  a  thing  impossible, 
that  the  peasant  of  Nazareth,  the  man  who  was  cru- 
cified, could  hold  up  a  light  in  the  presence  of  the 
world's  philosophic  thought  and  culture.  Neverthe- 
less the  child  of  the  humble  Judean  mother  made  the 
attempt.     We  read  that  when  he  was  Only  twelve 


ABSOLUTE  RELIGION.  1 7 

years  of  age,  the  inspiration  from  the  heavens  was 
so  strong  upon  him  and  his  heart  was  so  full,  that 
he  entered  into  this  great  controversy.  And  even 
then  his  understanding  and  answers  were  matters  of 
astonishment.  But  the  hand  of  the  mother,  who 
was  chosen  to  bring  him  within  the  sphere  of  hu- 
manity, withdrew  him  from  the  contest.  Her  heart 
had  prophetic  intimations  of  the  future  ;  but  the 
time  had  not  yet  come.  He  dwelt  in  Nazareth,  and 
with  his  heart  open  to  the  influx  of  the  truth,  he 
"  increased  in  wisdom  and  stature,  and  in  favor  with 
God  and  man."  And  when  in  the  maturity  of  man- 
hood he  came  again  into  the  field,  his  opponents 
met  him  with  all  the  appliances  and  aids  of  human 
learning  and  wisdom  ;  but  ignorant  of  that  divine 
philosophy  which  is  baptized  from  the  *  heavens,  and 
therefore  greatly  disordered  and  defeated  in  the  ar- 
gument, they  stopped  the  discussion  by  nailing  Him 
to  the  Cross.  But  there  is  something  in  the  man  of 
truth  which  can  never  die.  He  passed  on.  In  the 
language  of  the  Scriptures,  he  went  up  on  high. 
And  philosophy,  not  understanding  the  things  which 
are  seen  by  faith  and  not  by  sight,  looked  here  and 
there  but  could  not  find  Him. 

The  teacher  of  Nazareth,  dead  but  living,  no 
longer  a  child  but  clothed  with  heavenly  manhood, 
and  who  teaches  by  means  of  inspirations  and  influ- 


!g  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

ences  wrought  in  the  great  school  of  the  human 
heart,  still  claims  his  right  to  be  heard.  He  is  still 
a  teacher  of  the  Absolute  Religion. 

8. — It  remains  to  be  added,  which  I  think  will 
naturally  occur  to  the  reader,  that  the  doctrine  of 
the  Absolute  Religion  pertains  to  essentials  and  not 
to  the  mere  incidents  of  things ;  to  the  principles 
rather  than  the  form  ;  and  not  so  much  to  institu- 
tions and  ceremonies,  as  to  that  which  underlies 
them. 

It  deals  with  those  things,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  which  from  their  nature  bear  the  stamp  of  per 
manency ;  things  which  are  because  they  cannot  fail 
to  be ;  things  which  exist  because  non-existence  is 
an  impossibility ;  whereas  ceremonies,  outward  forms, 
institutions  which  have  beginnings,  changes  and  end, 
and  mere  outward  arrangements  and  incidents  of 
any  kind,  which  are  the  result  of  specific  and  positive 
enactment,  are  temporary  and  unsettled  in  their  na- 
ture and  are  short  in  their  duration.  And  therefore, 
it  will  not  be  surprising,  if  there  are  many  things 
which  will  not  be  noticed  in  what  follows ;  and  sim- 
ply because  they  fall  out  of  the  natural  line  of  our 
remarks,  and  receive  their  appropriate  attention  in 
other  connections  and  with  other  methods  of  treat- 
ment. 

9. — The  work  which  I   have   undertaken   is  de- 


ABSOLUTE  RELIGION: 


19 


signed  to  be  pacific  in  its  spirit,  and  is  not  necessarily 
controversial.  It  does  not  at  all  follow,  because  a 
writer  deals  with  a  controverted  subject,  that  his  dis- 
cussion of  such  a  subject  must  necessarily  be  harsh 
and  controversial  in  its  spirit  or  aspect.  In  what  I 
have  to  say,  I  shall  make  but  little  reference  to  names 
and  persons,  and  parties.  I  deal  with  principles 
rather  than  with  men.  And  it  is  not  beyond  my 
hope  that  the  truth  will  be  found,  and  that  charity 
will  be  unbroken. 


CHAPTER   II. 

The  Personality  of  God. 

I. — God  exists.  The  existence  of  God  is  a  doc- 
trine of  the  Absolute  Religion.  It  is  true  there  are 
said  to  be  Atheists.  Perhaps  there  may  be  individ- 
uals, not  very  many  in  number,  to  whom  that  name 
of  error  and  sadness  may  apply.  As  long  as  great 
perversions  of  the  human  mind  are  possible,  varying 
from  the  numerous  forms  of  temporary  disturbance 
to  partial  or  total  insanity,  it  is  not  unphilosophical 
to  suppose  that  atheism,  in  the  case  of  a  few  indi- 
viduals is  a  possibility.  But  I  know  not  that  there 
are  atheistic  communities  or  peoples.  Humanity, 
into  which  we  are  to  search  for  the  development  of 
principles,  is  represented  by  masses.  The  masses  of 
mankind,  as  they  are  found  associated  in  large  socie- 
ties and  communities,  have  never  rejected  the  idea 
of  a  God.  No  historian,  from  the  days  of  Herodotus 
and  Thucydides,  has  furnished  us  the  records  of  an 


THE  PERSONALITY  OE  GOD.  2I 

atheistic  nation.  We  are  justified  therefore  in  ta- 
king the  position,  that  the  idea  of  a  God  belongs  to 
humanity.  As  a  product  of  intellectualism,  it  finds 
its  origin  in  part  in  processes  of  reasoning  founded 
on  the  perceptions,  but  has  a  still  closer  alliance  with 
the  intuitions  ;  and  the  Being  whom  it  reveals  com- 
mands by  a  law  of  our  nature,  the  reverential  and 
loving  homage  of  the  heart.  So  clearly  is  the  doc- 
trine of  God's  existence  inscribed  upon  the  works  of 
outward  nature,  as  they  are  interpreted  by  the  hu- 
man intellect,  so  strongly  is  this  doctrine  affirmed 
by  the  interior  convictions  and  intuitions,  and  so 
necessary  is  it  in  response  to  the  yearnings  of  the 
human  heart,  that  I  cannot  feel  the  necessity  of  en- 
tering into  argument  in  relation  to  it.  I  take  it  for 
granted. 

2. — But  there  is  a  matter,  connected  with  the  di- 
vine existence,  which  cannot  well  be  omitted,  and 
which  is  of  great  importance.  I  refer  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  Personality  of  God.  Various  circum- 
stances have  brought  this  question  into  prominence, 
and  justify  giving  attention  to  it.  Within  a  few 
years  no  small  number  of  writers  of  acknowledged 
learning  and  ability  have  greatly  disturbed  the  tra- 
ditional belief  as  well  as  the  religious  hopes  and  con- 
solations of  a  large  portion  of  the  Christian  world, 
by  affirming  and  attempting  to  prove  the  imperson- 


22  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

ality  of  the  Divine  Being.  In  accordance  with  our 
plan  of  inquiry  we  shall  endeavor  to  show,  that  the 
Personality  of  God  is  taught  by  the  absolute  method  ; 
and  that  the  teachings  of  the  Absolute  Religion,  in 
this  particular  as  well  as  in  others  of  a  fundamentally 
religious  nature,  are  in  harmony  with  the  Christian 
doctrine. 

3. — It  cannot  well  be  doubted,  that  the  person- 
ality of  God  is  one  of  the  doctrines  contained  in  the 
teachings  of  Christ.  It  is  difficult  to  see  how  he 
could  address  God  as  his  Father,  and  in  terms  im- 
plying the  greatest  veneration  and  love,  without  be- 
lieving in  the  Personality  of  God. 

When,  in  the  trials  and  sorrows  of  the  Cross,  he 
prayed,  "  Father  forgive  them  for  they  know  not 
what  they  do  ;''  and  when  in  the  final  agony  of  his 
spirit  he  said,  "  my  God,  my  God,  why  hast  thou 
forsaken  me,"  it  cannot  well  be  supposed  that  he 
believed  he  was  praying  to  an  abstraction,  or  to  a 
spiritual  generalization,  or  a  great  undefined  princi- 
ple of  life,  instead  of  a  percipient  Being,  who  in  the 
mental  or  spiritual  sense  had  ears  to  hear,  and  a 
heart  to  feel.  We  cannot  doubt,  that  the  careful 
readers  of  the  New  Testament,  in  view  of  what  is 
there  said  having  a  bearing  upon  the  subject  now 
before  us,  fully  and  earnestly  accept  the  idea,  as  the 
only  one  which  can  be  reasonably  entertained,  that 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  GOD.  23 

Jesus  believed  in  the  divine  personality.  This  won- 
derful Being,  of  whom  we  shall  have  occasion  to 
speak  more  fully  hereafter,  had  a  heart  that  wor- 
shipped. His  intellectual  powers,  which  are  some- 
times overshadowed  and  concealed  by  the  manifes- 
tations of  his  great  goodness,  revealed  and  identi- 
fied the  object  of  his  worship  ;  and  his  loving  heart, 
which  added  emotion  to  perception,  accepted  the 
revelation  and  yielded  its  homage.  But  affirm  that 
God  is  not  a  personal  being,  only  an  underlying 
principle  or  causative  force  which  permeates  all  ex- 
istences and  develops  itself  in  all  the  forms  of  ex- 
istence, without  the  intelligence  and  responsibility 
which  are  implied  in  personality  and  only  by  means 
of  fixed  and  inexorable  law,  and  from  that  moment 
it  is  intuitionally  evident,  that  there  is  no  revela- 
tion of  an  object  of  worship  because  no  such  object 
exists.  And  worship  itself,  which  is  so  obviously 
one  of  the  leading  characteristics  of  the  inward  life 
of  Christ,  necessarily  ceases,  because  there  is  no  ob- 
ject to  which  it  can  attach  itself. 

4. — But  philosophy,  or  something  which  goes 
under  that  great  though  often  perverted  name,  has 
in  these  later  times  taken  a  different  view.  Those 
who  are  acquainted  with  the  speculations  and  sug- 
gestions on  this  subject,  associated,  more  or  less  dis- 
tinctly  with  the  names  of  Helvetius,  Diderot,  Con- 


24  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

dorcet,  D'Alembert,  Hume,  Gibbon,  Fichte,  Hegel, 
Compte,  Herbert  Spencer,  Mills,  Strauss,  Feuerbach 
and  others,  know  well  how  confidently  God  has 
been  announced  as  a  principle  of  activity  and  causa- 
tion, but  without  the  recognized  attribute  of  a  per- 
son ;  in  other  words  as  a  great  spiritual  or  psychical 
energy,  pervading  all  things  that  exist,  and  holding 
a  fixed  and  necessary  relation  to  results,  but  with- 
out a  distinct  and  available  responsibility,  and  with- 
out even  knowing  or  having  any  interest  in  know- 
ing what  the  results  of  its  own  activity  shall  be.  It 
is  painful  to  know  how  widely  such  speculations 
have  affected  the  thoughts  and  feelings  of  men. 
But  this  doctrine  of  God,  which  analyzed  to  its  re- 
sults is  practically  the  annihilation  of  God,  is  a  very 
different  thing  from  the  simple,  sublime,  and  truly 
philosophic  idea  of  God,  which  is  justly  understood 
as  holding  a  place  in  the  doctrines  of  Christ. 

The  God  of  the  Bible,  from  the  earliest  to  the 
latest  portion  of  its  announcements  is  a  personal 
God.  All  that  is  said  of  God  in  that  great  treasury 
of  thought,  including  the  personal  teachings  ol 
Christ,  with  all  its  affirmations  of  his  eternity  and 
universality,  recognizes  and  emphasizes  the  great 
and  essential  fact  of  his  personality. 

And  we  cannot  hesitate  in  saying,  that  a  true 
philosophy,  when    applied  to  the  doctrines  of  reli- 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  GOD.  2$ 

gion,  in  other  words  that  the  Absolute  Religion,  or 
Religion  developed  in  the  highest  and  truest  hu- 
man thought  and  feeling,  is  on  the  side  of  the  bibli- 
cal teachings. 

5. — And  let  us  now  look  at  the  subject  in  a  little 
different  aspect,  with  a  view  as  briefly  as  possible, 
to  bring  it  to  the  test  of  facts  and  reason.  Before  we 
can  either  affirm  or  deny  the  personality  of  God,  we 
must  first  make  personality  itself,  separate  from  the 
being  to  whom  it  attaches  and  of  whom  it  is  predi- 
cated, the  subject  of  our  thought.  It  is  at  this  point 
that  we  detect  what  seems  to  us  the  beginning  of  a 
great  error. 

Personality  is  not  merely  a  name  ;  nor  is  it  merely 
an  idea.  In  order  to  know  fully  what  it  is,  we  must 
go  back  from  the  name  to  the  idea  ;  and  from  the 
idea  or  thought  to  the  fact  or  truth  which  the  idea 
represents.  The  name  is  merely  an  aid  to  the 
thought  ;  an  auxiliary  or  help  in  the  use  of  the 
thought.  The  thought  or  idea  of  personality,  which 
arises  necessarily  in  the  mind  under  the  appropriate 
circumstances-of  its  origin,  is  justly  regarded  as  a 
simple  or  elementary  idea  ;  and  as  such  it  may  be 
admitted  that  it  is  not  susceptible  of  that  logical 
process  which  is  known  as  a  definition.  And  yet 
not  being  what  Mr.  Locke  would  call  an  illusive  or 
chimerical  idea,  but  one  harmonizing  with  the  truth 
2 


26  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

of  things,  it  involves  and  affirms  to  our  interior  con- 
victions and  belief  the  fact  or  verity  of  the  thing  to 
which  it  relates.  And  hence,  in  connection  with  the 
necessary  laws  of  mental  action,  we  have  a  basis,  and 
we  cannot  get  it  in  any  other  way,  for  affirming  the 
fact  of  personality.  We  say  for  instance  in  relation 
to  ourselves  and  say  it  without  hesitation  that  we 
are  personal  beings.  And  when  we  thus  come  to 
personality  itself,  in  distinction  from  the  idea  of  it  ; 
when  we  reach  the  verity  or  reality  of  the  fact  in 
distinction  from  its  intellectual  representation,  if  it 
should  happen  that  definitions  in  the  usual  logical 
form  fail  to  make  it  more  clearly  known,  on  account 
of  its  interior  and  elementary  nature,  it  is  still  both 
clear  in  itself  as  a  matter  of  internal  and  intuitional 
revelation,  and  we  can  also  obtain  to  some  extent 
additional  knowledge  of  what  it  is  by  the  indirect 
process  of  indicating  what  it  is  not. 

For  instance,  personality,  in  distinction  from  the 
idea  or  intellectual  representation  of  personality,  and 
considered  as  a  fact  or  verity  actually  existing  and 
of  which  it  can  be  affirmed  that  it  is,  is  not  identical 
with  existence,  nor  is  it  identical  with  knowledge, 
nor  with  power,  nor  with  activity,  nor  with  expan- 
sion. It  may  have  its  important  relations  with  any 
or  all  of  them  ;  but  it  requires  to  be  kept  distinct, 
both  in  its  idea  through  which  it  is  represented   to 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  GOD.  27 

us,  and  also  in  its  fact  or  realization.  A  Being,  sep- 
arate in  the  mere  fact  of  existence  from  other  beings, 
who  has  actually  powers  of  perception  and  affection, 
and  who  can  not  only  know  and  judge  and  feel,  but 
has  the  volitional  power  which  can  carry  his  judg- 
ments and  feelings  to  their  appropriate  issues,  has 
necessarily  a  personality,  whether  his  susceptibilities 
of  knowledge  be  greater  or  less,  or  whether  the  mere 
extent  or  expansion  of  his  existence  be  greater  or 
less,  or  whether  he  comes  within  the  limits  of  our 
comprehension  or  not.  The  convictions  of  the  hu- 
man mind,  arising  by  their  own  necessary  laws  of 
being,  require  us  in  such  a  case  to  affirm  the  fact  or 
realization  of  personality,  and  enable  us  to  say  with- 
out any  misgivings,  that  we  have  before  us  a  per- 
sonal being.  We  have  not  merely  the  idea  of  per- 
sonality, which  is  a  matter  of  interior  or  subjective 
experience  and  nothing  more  ;  but  we  have  before 
us  the  fact  of  personality,  in  its  outward  or  objective 
realization. 

6. — With  this  view  of  the  matter  before  us,  and 
on  such  fundamental  principles,  we  proceed  to  af- 
firm that  God  is  a  personal  being.  The  doctrine 
that  God  is  an  impersonal  being,  probably  owes  its 
origin  in  part  to  a  mistake  in  the  philosophical  ele- 
ments involved  in  the  doctrine  of  personality,  and 
in  part  to  the  fact,  that  God  is  without  limits.     As 


28  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

we  have  been  in  the  habit  of  ascribing  personality 
to  beings  who,  in  having  form,  are  subject  to  the 
limitations  of  form,  we  easily  fall  into  the  habit  of 
associating  personality  with  such  limitations,  and  at 
last  are  apt  to  adopt  the  conclusion,  that  where 
there  are  no  limits,  no  well-defined  boundaries  of 
existence  constituting  a  form,  there  can  be  no  per- 
sonality. Now  it  must  be  admitted,  that  in  the  ex- 
tent or  expansion  of  his  being,  God  is  without  lim- 
its; but  it  does  not  at  all  follow  that  God,  because 
he  transcends  the  limitations  of  the  human  senses, 
and  is  not  the  subject  of  material  measurement  or 
any  other  measurement,  is  therefore  not  a  personal 
God.  The  question  of  personality  does  not  turn 
upon  mere  extent  or  expansion  of  being,  whether 
physically  or  even  psychically  considered,  but  rath- 
er upon  the  traits  or  characteristics  of  being.  In 
considering  the  subject  of  God's  personality,  it  is  a 
proper  inquiry,  whether  he  possesses  intelligence 
which  is  cognizant  of  the  fact  of  his  own  existence 
and  power ;  whether  he  has  the  capability  of  know- 
ing and  affirming  the  fixed  relation  of  himself,  both 
in  perception  and  action,  to  that  interior  law  of  rec- 
titude which  is  also  a  part  of  his  being ;  whether  he 
possesses  a  volitional  power  correspondent  to  the 
powers  of  perception  and  the  claims  of  moral  obli- 
gation ?     It   is  in   the  answer  to  such  questions  as 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  GOD.  29 

these,  that  we  find  the  basis  of  personality  consider- 
ed as  a  fact  or  realization.  And  if  the  answer  is  in 
the  affirmative,  then  God  most  evidently  possesses 
all  the  requisites  of  personality,  and  stands  forth  be- 
fore the  universe,  not  merely  as  a  blind  and  unintel- 
ligent principle  of  movement,  but  as  a  personal  God, 
capable  of  intelligent  design  and  action,  endowed 
with  responsibility  both  to  himself  and  to  all  beings 
that  are  dependent  on  him,  and  entitled,  in  the  case 
of  those  who  are  dependent,  to  obedience  and  hom- 
age. 

7. — And  it  is  proper  to  say  here,  as  an  indirect 
confirmation  of  our  position,  that  humanity  de- 
mands a  God  who  can  thus  be  recognized  and  wor- 
shipped. The  instinct  of  reverence  and  homage, 
which  evidently  pervades  the  human  heart,  so  much 
so  that  it  has  found  its  place  as  an  attribute  of  hu- 
manity in  all  lands  and  all  ages,  requires,  and  cannot 
be  satisfied  with  anything  short  of  a  personal  God. 
In  the  view  of  the  great  masses  of  men,  to  deny  the 
personality  of  God,  is,  to  all  practical  purposes  and 
results,  much  the  same,  as  we  have  already  intima- 
-ted  as  to  deny  the  existence  of  God.  So  that  we 
run  no  hazard  in  saying,  that  a  personal  God  is  one 
of  the  great  religious  necessities  of  humanity.  Re- 
ligion is  the  interior  and  domestic  tie,  which  makes 
the   united    family  of  the    finite    and    the    Infinite. 


30  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

And  without  a  Being,  who  is  not  only  supreme  in 
his  attributes,  but  who  is  approachable,  and  can  be 
addressed  and  confided  in,  on  the  basis  furnished  by 
a  deific  personality,  the  human  race  is  necessarily 
left  in  the  condition  of  a  bewildered  and  sorrowing 
orphanage. 

8. — And  we  may  add  that  the  opposite  doctrine 
that  which  denies  God's  personality,  seems  to  us  to 
be  full  of  danger  in  other  respects.  It  is  not  only 
the  abnegation  of  religion,  but  of  practical  morality. 
The  doctrine  of  impersonality,  admitting  that  it  some- 
times comes  before  us  with  learned  and  imposing 
pretensions,  will  be  found,  if  allowed  to  go  unques- 
tioned, to  be  attended  not  only  with  the  rupture  of 
God  and  man,  but  of  man  and  his  fellow-man.  It  is 
a  doctrine  which  not  only  strikes  boldly  at  the  re- 
ligious intuitions  of  the  great  heart  of  humanity,  but 
is  an  inlet,  through  its  want  of  practical  power,  to 
hostility,  fraud,  cruelty,  and  all  varieties  of  crime. 
No  theory  of  practical  morals  has  ever  been  con- 
structed on  the  basis  of  the  impersonality  of  God, 
which  is  available  against  the  mighty  evils  that  con- 
tinually imperil  man's  social  condition.  The  auda- 
city of  wrong  and  crime  is  not  frightened  by  an  ab- 
straction. Nor  is  it  much  afraid  of  a  positive  princi- 
ple of  life,  which  has  no  self-regulated  thought  and 
volition.     If  it   were   possible  for  impersonality  to 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  GOD.  oX 

leave  us  a  God  at  all,  which  it  is  not,  it  would  be  a 
God  with  no  eyes  to  see,  and  no  cars  to  hear,  and 
no  hands  to  handle,  and  no  head  to  think,  and  no 
heart  to  feel,  and  no  will  to  execute  ; — a  God,  if  any 
one  should  object  to  the  material  form  of  the  expres- 
sions, with  nothing  which  our  spiritual  eyes  could 
see,  or  our  spiritual  ears  could  hear,  or  our  hearts' 
necessities  could  appeal  to  ; — a  God,  in  any  light  in 
which  it  is  possible  to  consider  him,  without  a  voice 
to  cheer  us  in  our  efforts  to  do  right,  and  without  a 
hand  to  help  us  against  the  dangers  which  would 
certainly  assail  and  overwhelm  us. 


CHAPTER   III. 

God  as  Life. 

I. — In  subjecting  the  doctrines  of  Religion  to  the 
estimate  of  the  Absolute,  and  in  thus  bringing  them 
to  the  test  of  fundamental  reason,  so  that  the  reli- 
gious announcement  or  doctrine,  whatever  it  may  be, 
shall  be  found  identical  with  the  eternal  truth  or 
otherwise,  it  will  be  necessary  to  say  something  of 
life  as  an  ultimate  and  necessary  principle,  and  to 
affirm  and  verify  its  identity  with  God.  Every  one 
knows  how  common  a  thing  it  is  to  speak  of  God, 
not  only  as  great  and  independent  in  himself,  but  as 
sustaining  a  causative  relation,  and  as  being  the  pri 
mal  source  and  living  principle  or  life  of  all  things. 
But  God  could  not  be  the  source  or  life  of  other 
things  without  having  life  in  himself.     God  is  Life. 

And  the  question  naturally  arises  in  the  inquiring 
mind  what  Life  is  ?  In  answering  this  question,  it  is 
admitted  that  we  may  not  be  able,  in  consequence 
of  its  ultimate  and  primary  position,  to  say  what  life 
is,  in  itself  considered :  but  it  will  aid  much  in  giving 


GOD  AS  LIFE.  33 

clearness  to  our  conceptions,  if  we  proceed  to  give 
concisely  but  distinctly  some  of  its  marks  or  charac- 
teristics. 

I. — One  of  the  marks  or  characteristics  of  Life,  in 
its  primary  or  ultimate  sense,  in  distinction  from 
anything  of  a  subordinate  or  secondary  nature  which 
may  sometimes  bear  that  name,  is,  that  it  is  without 
beginning.  If  the  Life,  meaning  by  the  term  what 
may  be  conveniently  designated  as  the  true  or  essen- 
tial Life,  could  not  be  said  to  exist  without  a  begin- 
ning, then  it  would  be  true,  that  there  was  a  time, 
(namely,  the  time  antecedent  to  its  beginning,)  when 
it  had  no  existence  :  a  doctrine,  which  would  leave 
the  universe  for  unnumbered  ages  without  any  life- 
giving  principle.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that 
this  is  a  view  which  is  inadmissible.  And  besides, 
if  there  was  a  time  when  the  Essential  Life  did  not 
exist,  and  afterwards  a  time  when  it  began  to  exist, 
then,  inasmuch  as  not  having  existed  at  first  it  could 
not  have  created  itself,  it  must  have  been  brought 
into  being  by  another  Life  antecedent  to  it  in  exist- 
ence. And  if  there  was  another  principle  of  Life 
antecedent  to  it  in  existence,  which  was  without  be- 
ginning and  had  also  by  means  of  its  higher  and 
broader  nature  the  power  of  developing  existence  in 
other  forms,  then  that  antecedent  life  was,  and  is, 
the  Essential  Life.  Therefore  it  is  reasonable  to  say 
2* 


34 


ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 


that  one  of  the  marks  or  characteristics  of  Life,  in 
the  true  and  higher  sense  of  that  term,  is,  that  it  is 
without  beginning. 

2. — Another  mark  or  characteristic  of  Life,  in  the 
higher  or  essential  sense,  is,  that  it  is  eternal.  Eter- 
nity, which  has  reference  to  termination  as  well  as 
commencement,  and  excludes  both,  is  without  begin- 
ning and  also  without  end.  The  Essential  Life  is 
eternal.  And  it  is  so  because  it  is  without  begin- 
ning. That  which  exists  -without  beginning  to  exist, 
has  the  reason  or  ground  of  existence  in  itself;  and, 
therefore,  having  life  in  itself  and  of  itself,  there  is  no 
reason  why  it  should  die.  The  fact  of  existence, 
with  no  reason  of  existence  but  what  is  found  in 
itself,  obviously  involves  the  idea  of  eternity  of  exist- 
ence. Being  what  it  is,  and  with  adequate  reasons 
for  thus  being,  and  without  any  dependence  for  its 
existence  on  any  thing  outside  of  itself,  it  necessarily 
continues  to  be  what  it  is.  Continuance  is  the  oppo- 
site of  cessation.  The  Essential  Life,  therefore  is 
eternal. 

3. — Another  and  third  characteristic  of  the  great 
living  principle  which  we  are  considering,  is  that 
it  is  universal.  If  the  principle  of  Life  is  limited, 
then,  place  the  limitation  wherever  you  may,  the 
great  universe  of  things,  in  comparison  with  which 
the    restricted  or  limited  universe  is  as  nothing,  is 


GOD  AS  LIFE. 


35 


beyond  this  limit ;  reaching  out  in  all  directions  in 
immensity  which  is  boundless;  and  this  infinitely 
wider  or  true  universe  is  a  universe  without  life, 
which  is  inconceivable.  The  fixed  and  necessary 
conceptions  of  the  human  intellect  require  life, 
wherever  there  is  a  capacity  of  life.  A  universe 
without  life  is  nothing  more  or  less  than  universal 
death.  The  doctrine  of  a  universe  without  life  is 
just  as  contradictory  to  the  conceptions  of  the  intui- 
tive or  suggestional  intellect  of  man,  (that  depart- 
ment of  our  nature  which  gives  us  all  our  primary 
or  elementary  ideas,)  as  would  be  the  doctrine  of  a 
universe  without  the  attendant  conceptions  and  facts 
of  space  and  time.  It  is  on  such  grounds,  stated  as 
briefly  as  possible,  that  we  are  justified  in  the  asser- 
tion, that  the  Essential  Life  is  universal. 

4. — A  fourth  mark  or  characteristic  is,  that  it  is 
a  life  which  in  its  own  interior  nature  is  without 
change.  Changes  spring  out  of  it,  since  it  is  that 
essential  unity  of  existence  out  of  which  comes  all 
variety.  But  in  itself  it  is  unchangeable.  And  it  is 
so,  because  it  is  eternal  and  universal.  Being  eter- 
nal, it  cannot  limit  itself  in  time  ;  and  being  univer- 
sal, it  cannot  limit  itself  in  place.  And  being  thus 
commensurate  with  all  place  and  time,  meeting  the 
wants  of  every  moment  of  time  and  of  every  condi- 
tion of  things,  a  change  in  its  own  nature,  whatever 


36  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION 

may  be  true  of  change  in  its  varied  manifestations, 
becomes  an  impossibility.  It  is  life  now ;  and  it  is 
life  always.  And  it  is  the  same  life,  the  same  in 
its  nature  and  extent,  to-day,  yesterday,  and  for- 
ever. 

5. — Another  characteristic  of  the  Essential  Life 
is,  that  it  never  ceases  in  its  action.  Activity  is  a 
part  of  its  nature  ;  it  is  a  principle,  which  ever  goes 
out  of  its  subject  to  its  object,  and  finds  the  neces- 
sary nourishment  of  its  own  life  in  the  good  it  does 
to  another.  To  cease  to  act,  therefore,  would  be  to 
cease  to  live.  It  is  true,  that  it  changes  its  modes 
of  action  ;  and  this  change  of  mode  in  action  may 
be  regarded  as  furnishing  the  compensation  of  rest ; 
but  still,  there  is  properly  speaking,  no  cessation  of 
activity.  And  accordingly,  in  being  a"  perpetual 
life,  it  is  also  a  perpetual  development.  Always 
one,  and  yet  exhaustless  and  countless  in  its  diver- 
sity ;  the  endless  out-going  of  the  central  infinite  in 
the  multiplied  and  constantly  varied  manifestations 
of  the  finite. 

6. — It  is,  then,  a  life  which  is  endless,  boundless, 
changeless,  ceaseless ;  the  source  of  all  other  life, 
because  it  is  itself  the  true  life ;  and  the  source  also 
in.  an  important  sense  of  all  knowledge,  because 
knowledge  is   inseparable  from   Life   in   its  highest 


GOD  AS  LIFE.  37 

form  ;  and  yet,  Life  in  its  own  nature,  in  many  re- 
spects, is  necessarily  and  forever  unknown. 

And  now  comes  a  remarkable  fact.  Such  char- 
acteristics as  have  now  been  described,  will  apply 
equally  well  to  God,  and  to  God  only.  The  charac- 
teristics of  Life  are  equally  the  characteristics  of 
God.  And  they  justify  us  in  saying,  that  God  has 
the  true  life  in  himself;  that  God  is  not  only  the 
great  causative  and  living  principle  of  all  things, 
but  more  concisely  and  yet  truly,  that  God  is  Life. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Identity  of  Life  and  Love. 

I. — But  there  is  something  additional,  notwith- 
standing the  possible  limitations  of  our  knowledge 
in  some  important  respects,  which  may  help  us  to  a 
more  interior  view  of  the  nature  of  Life.  There  is 
something  within  the  limits  of  human  experience, 
which  allies  us  to  the  great  Source  from  which  we 
come,  and  which  may  be  appealed  to  in  these  in- 
quiries. The  Essential  Life,  in  recognizing  itself  in 
its  causative  and  sustaining  form  as  existing  in  hu- 
manity, and  in  being  thus  brought  in  some  degree 
within  the  sphere  of  human  comprehension,  and 
made  the  subject  of  human  analysis,  reveals  itself 
as  Love.  So  that  in  view  of  the  evidences  that  at- 
tend it,  we  may  venture  to  lay  down  the  proposi- 
tion, that  Love  and  Life  are  essentially  the  same: 
a  proposition  so  wide  in  its  sweep  and  so  fruitful  in 
its  consequences  that,  while  its  evidences  compel 
the   acquiescence   and   homage  of  the   intellect,   its 


IDENTITY  OF' LIFE  AND  LOVE. 


39 


tendencies  and  results,  when  rightly  understood,  fill 
the  heart  with  joy. 

2. — In  prosecuting  the  inquiries  of  this  chapter, 
we  derive  an  argument  in  support  of  the  identity 
of  Life  and  Love,  in  the  first  place,  from  the  Divine 
Nature  itself.  And  such  an  argument,  harmonizing 
with  the  Absolute  methods  of  thought,  brings  our 
conclusions,  so  far  as  they  have  a  religious  aspect  at 
all,  within  the  limits  of  the  Absolute  Religion.  God 
is  Life:  God  is  Love. 

In  being  inseparable  from' all  existences,  in  be- 
ing the  central  causative  principle  of  all  existences, 
and  in  harmonizing  with  all  existences,  there  is  no 
possible  motive  or  reason  why  the  Divine  Life 
should  not  be  interested,  (the  relative  position  and 
responsibilities  of  all  being  taken  into  account,)  in 
seeking  the  good,  the  happiness,  and  the  perfection 
of  all.  Its  motive  of  action  cannot  turn  back  upon 
itself  and  seek  a  causation  prior  to  that  which  is  al- 
ready first,  because,  being  infinite  itself,  it  cannot 
ascend  a  higher  height,  or  sound  a  deeper  depth, 
than  it  has  in  its  own  nature.  And  thus  standing 
central,  and  at  the  same  time  without  limitation, 
and  consequently  having  no  power  outside  of  itself 
to  excite  its  fears,  or  to  limit  its  responsibilities, 
what  strength  of  thought  or  ingenuity  of  conception 
can  suggest  a  motive  in  the  Infinite  Mind,  which  is 


40  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

adverse  to  the  universal  good.  In  other  words,  the 
Life  of  God,  in  its  substance  and  essentiality,  is,  and 
must  be,  a  Life  of  Love. 

3- — And  now  let  us  look  at  the  subject  in  another 
aspect.  Love,  in  distinction  from  the  counterfeits 
of  love  ;  we  mean  that  divine  love,  which  "  casts  out 
fear,"  and  which  pursues  the  good  of  its  object  for 
the  sake  of  the  good  and  not  for  the  sake  of  reward  ; 
such  love  has  all  the  marks  or  characteristics  which 
have  already  been  ascribed  to  the  Essential  Life. 
It  was  said  of  Essential  Life  that  it  has  no  beginning. 
The  same  can  be  said  of  Love.  Looking  at  love 
psychologically,  and  in  one  of  its  most  distinguishing 
aspects,  it  may  be  described  as  simply  benevolent 
desire,  or  the  desire  of  good.  And  like  every  other 
desire,  it  involves  in  its  very  nature  and  as  a  part  of 
its  nature,  a  tendency  to  activity  and  to  practical 
results.  It  is  essentially  a  motive  power.  Now 
take  the  universe  as  the  theatre  of  inquiry,  and  say 
whether  Love,  considered  as  a  motive  power,  has  or 
can  nave,  admits  .  or  can  admit,  of  any  active  and 
causative  power  antecedent  to  itself.  Looking  at  the 
question  psychologically,  it  seems  to  us  that  only 
three  suppositions  are  possible  in  the  case ;  first, 
indifference,  which  is  not  life,  but  the  negation  of 
life ;  second,  the  desire  of  evil,  which,  if  it  be  admit- 
ted as  the  primal  activity,  would  annihilate  God,  and 


IDENTITY  OF  LIFE  AND  LOVE.  41 

enthrone  Satan  ;  and  third,  the  desire  of  good,  which 
is  only  another  name  for  Love. 

Now  apply  this  analysis  to  God.  If  God  exists 
at  all,  he  exists  as  Essential  Life.  As  essential  life, 
He  is  essential  activity ;  and  that,  too,  without  a  be- 
ginning of  such  activity.  Forever,  and  as  a  part  of 
his  nature,  He  must  have  had  in  himself  a  motivity 
a  principle  of  action.  That  principle  of  activity, 
could  not  have  been  indifference  ;  for  that  would  be 
a  contradiction  in  terms.  It  could  not  be  the  desire 
of  evil,  for  that  would  constitute  a  satanic  Infinite. 
On  the  only  remaining  supposition,  it  must  have 
been  the  desire  of  good  or  love.  Love  therefore,  is, 
and,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  must  be,  the  con- 
stitutive activity  of  the  universe.  And  being  central 
in  the  infinite  nature,  we  may  say  of  it  as  we  say  of 
God,  it  is  without  beginning  ;  and,  therefore  it  is, 
and  must  be  to  that  extent,  the  same  with  the  Es- 
sential Life  of  things. 

4. — And  again,  looking  at  the  subject  a  little  fur- 
ther, we  need  not  hesitate  to  say,  that  the  circum- 
stances and  intuitions  which  necessitate  the  affirma- 
tion, that  Love  is  without  beginning,  involve  also 
the  additional  affirmation,  that  Love  is  without  end- 
ing, in  other  words,  it  is  eternal.  And  as  it  has  no 
beginning,  and  no  ending,  and  thus  covers  all  time ; 
so,  looking  at  it  in  another  aspect,  and  by  means  of 


42  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION, 

other  processes  of  thought,  such  as  will  easily  sug- 
gest themselves,  we  are  under  the  necessity  of  affirm- 
ing further  that  the  principle  under  consideration  is 
a  principle  without  limitation  ;  a  principle  surmount- 
ing the  boundaries  which  might  be  supposed  to  stop 
its  progress,  and  reaching  to  every  place  and  every 
object  within  the  realms  of  actual  or  possible  exist- 
ence. And  this  great  principle,  without  beginning 
and  without  end,  reaching  to  all  objects  and  living 
in  all  events,  universal  by  the  same  necessities  which 
compel  the  fact  of  its  eternity,  is  thus  made  to  stand 
forth  with  the  same  attributes  and  the  same  features 
as  the  Essential  Life.  So  that  we  are  justified  in 
saying  that  Life  is  Love,  and  Love  is  Life.  And 
God,  who  is  the  embodiment  of  life,  is  the  embodi- 
ment of  love  ;  and  is  what  He  is,  whether  He  is 
called  God  or  Life,  because  He  is  Love. 

5. — These  views  are  the  views  of  the  Absolute 
Religion  ;  views  which  involve  the  unchangeable 
facts  and  relations  of  things,  and  have  the  sanction 
of  the  highest  reason ;  and  if  God  had  not  taught 
them  in  the  Scriptures,  we  should  still  be  held  ac- 
countable by  the  light  that  is  within.  But  the  reli- 
gion of  enlightened  reason  and  the  religion  of  the 
Bible  are  one  ;  thorough  and  candid  inquiries,  enlight- 
ened by  the  spirit  of  humility  and  faith,  will  not  fail 
to  harmonize  them.     And  hence  we  open  the  Bible, 


IDENTITY  OF  LIFE  AND  LOVE.  43 

and  find  that  wonderful  expression,  repeated  and 
emphasized  in  its  essential  meaning  in  a  variety  of 
forms,  "  God  is  Love.''  This  great  truth,  upon 
which  hinges  the  destiny  of  the  universe,  seems  to 
have  developed  itself  especially  in  the  bosom  of  the 
apostle  John.  Without  going  through  long  pro- 
cesses of  reasoning  and  possibly  without  any  train- 
ing in  such  processes,  he  nevertheless  had  the  grand 
intuitions  of  the  heart,  and  uttered  affirmations, 
which  God  in  the  soul  had  taught  him.  Plato,  the 
first  of  Grecian  philosophers,  could  affirm  that  God 
a  geometrizes,''  and  he  uttered  a  truth,  correspond- 
ing in  depth  and  comprehension  to  this  wonderful 
saying  of  the  humble  and  loving  disciple. 

6. — The  doctrine  that  Love  is  identical  with  Life, 
brings  the  subject  of  the  Essential  Life  within  the 
sphere  of  human  cognitions.  It  is  true  that  Love, 
considered  as  Life,  operates  in  all  space  and  all  time  ; 
but  it  is  also  true  that  it  does  this,  without  being 
identical  with  either.  So  that  it  can  be  said,  in  ex- 
pressions which  imperfectly  convey  the  idea,  that  it 
is  the  life  of  space  without  being  space,  the  life  of 
time  without  being  time  ;  in  other  words,  a  principle 
and  not  an  expansion,  an  elemental  activity,  and 
not  an  outward,  material  measurement.  And  hence 
arises  both  the  fact  and  the  possibility  of  its  incar- 
nation.    The  Essential  Life,  whether  called  Life  or 


44  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

Love,  is  individual  as  well  as  universal ;  dwelling  in 
God,  and  dwelling  more  or  less,  in  all  the  creatures 
of  God  who  are  born  into  his  image.  And  since  the 
day  when  Christ  walked  in  the  valley  of  Nazareth, 
and  wept  in  the  garden  of  Gethsemane,  it  can  be  said 
that  the  life  of  God  dwells  in  the  soul  of  man,  and 
the  problem  of  the  Infinite,  so  far  as  its  most  essen- 
tial element  is  concerned,  is  brought  within  the  field 
of  human  consciousness,  and  is  made  the  subject  of 
human  affirmation.  The  holy  man,  whoever  and 
wherever  he  may  be,  walks  in  life  ; — the  same  divine 
and  essential  life  which  dwells  in  the  bosom  of  the 
Infinite.  The  life  of  the  follower  of  Christ  is  the 
same  in  its  essence  with  the  life  of  Christ.  There  is 
a  philosophical  and  substantial  foundation  for  that 
wonderful  but  most  true  assertion  of  the  apostle  Paul, 
"I  live,  yet  not  I,  but  Christ  liveth  in  me."  The 
essential  life  of  Christ  was  LOVE  ;— the  cross  of  Cal- 
vary was  only  its  necessary  resultant,  and  its  divine 
symbol.  The  cross  is  Love  :  and  in  that  view  of  the 
interior  and  subjective  nature  of  the  cross,  it  stands 
as  a  bright  and  perpetual  reality  in  the  heart  of  every 
Christian. 


CHAPTER    V. 

God  as  Unity  and  Duality. 

I. — Having  given  in  the  preceding  chapters  some 
of  the  marks  or  characteristics  of  Life,  and  shown  its 
identity  with  Love  ;  and  having  seen  that  God  is 
Life  in  the  highest  sense  of  the  term,  or  what  may 
conveniently  be  named  Essential  Life ;  in  other 
words,  that  the  fact  of  his  existence  is  a  problem  of 
necessity,  that  Life  is  in  Him  by  essence  or  being, 
that  He  cannot  be  otherwise  than  what  He  is,  and 
is  without  beginning  and  without  end  ;  and  having 
seen  also  that  God,  notwithstanding  the  objections 
that  have  been  so  freely  made  in  these  later  times, 
is  a  Personality,  and  is  susceptible  of  being  recog- 
nized and  approached  as  such;  we  are  now  prepared 
to  go  a  step  further,  and  to  say  in  the  light  both  of 
the  Absolute  Religion  and  the  Scriptures,  that  God, 
the  great  fact  and  mystery  of  the  universe,  is  at  the 
same  moment  and  by  the  necessities  of  existence, 
Unity,  Duality,  and  Trinity. 

2. — It    may  be   said,   however,  that  neither   of 


46  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

these  great  expressions  standing  alone,  pregnant  as 
they  are  with  a  deep  and  divine  meaning,  can  con- 
vey to  us  the  full  idea  of  that  wonderful  being  whom 
we  call  God.  But  taken  in  connection  with  each 
other  and  with  Personality  as  the  basis  of  their  ap- 
plication, they  open  views  of  the  Infinite,  which  the 
exploration  of  ages  would  not  fully  satisfy.  We 
shall  treat  of  them  in  the  order  in  which  they  have 
been  named. 

Of  the  first  affirmation,  namely,  the  Unity  of  the 
divine  Nature,  we  shall  have  but  little  comparatively 
to  say,  because  it  is  a  subject  on  which  much  has 
been  ably  written,  and  is  one  which  to  thinking  and 
philosophic  minds  is  but  little  short  of  self-evident. 
The  argument  on  the  subject  is  commonly  and  very 
justly  drawn  from  the  evidences  of  oneness  of  design 
in  the  multiplied  objects  of  creation. 

3. — There  is  a  foundation  for  the  argument  from 
creation,  because  creation  implies  the  fact  of  a  crea- 
tor, and  because,  looking  at  these  objects  in  the 
light  of  their  logical  relation,  creation  does  not  con- 
tain anything  which  did  not  antecedently  exist  in 
the  ideas  of  the  creating  Mind,  so  that  creation,  ex- 
isting in  the  universe  of  objects  around  us,  may  justly 
be  regarded  as  the  out-going,  the  reflex,  or  if  it  be 
preferred,  the  shadows  of  the  Infinite.  And  accord- 
ingly what   God   is  in  the   eternal   principles  of  his 


GOD  AS  UNITY  AND  DUALITY. 


47 


nature,  including  his  Unity,  is  written  not  merely  in 
the  messages  of  Prophets  and  Apostles,  but  in  his 
out-goings,  in  the  emanations  of  Himself  which  ex- 
ist in  the  things  that  are  made,  in  the  great  robe  of 
created  forms  and  life  which  hangs  as  a  garment 
around  the  brightness  of  his  essential  being.  And 
there,  as  we  read  in  accordance  with  the  laws  of  our 
mental  beings  the  multiplied  facts  of  emanated  or 
created  existence,  which  are  expressions  of  the  one- 
ness of  thought  and  plan  that  lie  hidden  in  the 
Source  or  Centre  from  which  they  come,  our  convic- 
tions become  harmonized  and  consolidated  in  a  par- 
ticular direction  ;  and  at  last  it  is  impossible  for  us 
to  doubt  the  Unity  of  that  great  Creative  Centre. 
We  cannot  dwell,  nor  do  we  feel  it  to  be  necessary, 
upon  the  specific  processes  of  thought  by  which  this 
is  done.  Nevertheless,  Unity  is  the  first  word  in 
the  divine  alphabet  ;  and  Nature,  speaking  in  her 
silent  voices,  and  writing  her  record  in  the  book  of 
the  Absolute  Religion,  harmonizes  with  the  Scrip- 
tures in  saying,  God  is  ONE  God. 

4. — But  this  is  not  the  only  or  the  final  word  in 
the  great  facts  of  God's  existence.  We  proceed 
therefore  to  say,  without  however,  confidently  ex- 
pecting an  equal  unanimity  of  opinion  in  regard  to 
it,  that  the  Divine  Nature  is  dual,  or  two-fold,  at  the 
same  time  that  it  is  one.     This  great  mystery  in  the 


48 


ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 


nature  of  the  Divine  Being  is  rendered  possible  by 
the  great  fact  of  Personality,  which  has  this  pecu- 
liarity, that,  while  it  necessarily  implies  and  in- 
cludes existence,  it  may  be  regarded  as  something 
more  than  existence,  because  it  is  a  fixed  and  dis- 
criminated modification  of  existence.  The  unity  is 
in  the  existence  ;  the  duality  which  attaches  to  the 
same  existence,  and  can  never  yield  its  claim  to  it, 
reveals  itself  in  that  real  and  indestructible  modifi- 
cation of  existence — that  elemental  fact  of  the  uni- 
verse, not  easily  explained,  but  which  can  never  be 
ignored,— called  Personality.  It  is  upon  this  basis 
that  the  Absolute  Religion,  which  cannot  interpret 
itself  independently  of  existing  facts,  harmonizes 
with  the  Scriptures  in  breaking  up  the  desolateness 
of  Unity  and  proclaiming  the  two-foldness  or  duality 
of  the  Divine  Nature.  And  if  we  will  but  open  our 
eyes,  so  significant  are  the  facts  that  have  relation 
to  it,  we  cannot  fail  to  see  at  least  some  evidences 
of  it. 

5. — Some  of  the  facts  upon  which  our  conclusions 
are  founded  are  these :  In  every  form  or  kind  of 
existence  which  comes  fully  within  the  limits  of 
human  knowledge,  we  find  that  each  form,  while  it 
is  discriminated  from  every  other  form,  reveals  within 
the  prescribed  limits  of  its  own  existence  the  won- 
derful  combination   of  unity  of  nature  with  a  two- 


GOD  . /  S  UNIT Y  AND  D UALIT Y.  ^ 

foldncss  or  duality  in  the  constitution  of  that  nature. 
Take  our  common  humanity  as  an  example.  No 
one  can  well  deny  that  humanity  is  one  in  nature  or 
being,  while  at  the  same  time,  without  abrogating  in 
any  degree  its  unity  and  identity  of  nature,  it  is 
dualistic  in  personality.  Man  is  not  woman  and 
woman  is  not  man,  and  yet  neither  man  nor  woman 
is  out  of  the  limits  of  humanity.  They  stand  re 
vealed,  to  the  comprehension  of  all  true  and  candid 
judgment,  forever  one  in  the  essential  identicalness 
of  being  or  nature,  and  yet  forever  discriminated  by 
facts  and  relations  which  make  them  two  in  one. 
And  our  argument  is,  that  God,  in  revealing  this 
great  fact  in  everything  that  is  made,  has  revealed, 
in  connection  with  the  primal  and  essential  unity  in 
his  own  existence,  the  additional  fact  of  duality.  In 
other  words,  God  is  both  Fatherhood  and  Mother- 
hood. 

To  the  mind  impelled  by  the  laws  of  its  own 
being,  that  intuitionally  accepts  the  great  fact  of 
Causation,  and  can  read  the  inherent  nature  of  the 
cause  in  the  facts  that  flow  from  it,  this,  I  think,  is 
the  inevitable  conclusion.  And  from  the  eternal 
Fatherhood  and  Motherhood,  furnishing,  in  their  co- 
existent and  co-operative  duality,  the  only  conceiva- 
ble basis  of  such  a  result,  all  things  proceed. 

6. — But  is  there  anything  in  the  Scriptures,  any- 


50  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

thing  in  the  common  and  generally  accepted  forms 
of  religious  thought  and  feeling  which  harmonizes 
with  this  view?  It  may,  perhaps,  be  admitted  that 
the  Scriptures  are  not  very  full  or  very  explicit  on 
this  subject,  and  yet  there  are  some  things  that  favor 
what  has  been  said.  It  is  worthy  of  notice,  that  in 
the  very  earliest  part  of  the  Bible  there  are  expres- 
sions which  clearly  intimate  a  plurality,  not,  indeed, 
in  the  essential  nature,  but  in  the  personalities  of  the 
Godhead.  The  Hebrew  word  ELOHIM,  which  often 
occurs  as  the  name  of  the  Supreme  Being,  and  which 
is  translated  God,  is  in  the  plural  form.  In  the  ac- 
count which  is  given  in  the  first,  third,  and  eleventh 
chapters  of  Genesis  of  God's  early  doings,  he  is 
represented  as  conversing  with  another,  and  in  such 
a  way  as  to  convey  the  idea  of  more  than  one  divine 
personality.  It  is  a  part  of  this  early  history  that 
God  made  man  in  his  own  image  ;  and  yet  it  seems 
to  be  obvious  from  what  follows  that  the  man  who 
was  thus  created  contained  in  himself  a  combination 
of  male  and  female  elements,  which  either  consti- 
tuted, or  was  destined  subsequently  to  constitute,  a 
duality  of  persons.  And  it  may  be  remarked  in  this 
connection  that  the  intermingling  of  the  plural  pro- 
nouns us  and  our  with  the  singular  pronouns  he  and 
his,  when  God  himself  is  the  subject  of  discourse,  as 
in  Genesis  i.  :  26,  27,  may  be  regarded  as  natural  or 


GOD  IS  UNI  TY  AND  D  UA  LI  TV.  51 

at  least  explainable,  on  the  supposition  of  a  plurality 
of  persons;  but  not  otherwise. 

7. — In  the  book  of  Proverbs,  the  authorship  of 
which  is  generally,  and  probably  with  justice,  ascri- 
bed to  Solomon,  the  second  Personality,  as  it  is 
sometimes  called  by  writers,  or  that  personality 
which  indicates  the  maternal  element  and  power  of 
the  Godhead,  is  understood  by  many  commentators, 
especially  those  of  a  deeply  intuitive  and  devout  cast 
of  mind,  to  be  announced  under  the  name  of  Wis- 
dom, called  in  the  Greek  Septuagint  translation,  SO- 
PHIA. "  Wisdom,"  or  the  "  Divine  Sophia,''  is  rep- 
resented in  the  eighth  chapter  of  the  book,  as  lifting 
up  her  voice,  as  standing  in  the  top  of  high  places, 
as  crying  aloud  at  the  entrance  of  the  city  gates. 
The  character  of  the  language  is  so  remarkable  in 
some  parts  of  the  chapter,  that  it  is  certainly  difficult 
to  explain  it  on  the  ground  merely  of  figurative 
forms  of  expression.  "  By  me,"  says  Wisdom, 
"  kings  reign  and  princes  decree  justice.  By  me 
princes  rule,  and  nobles,  even  all  the  judges  of  the 
earth/'  And  again,  in  language  which  reminds  one 
of  what  is  said  of  the  Wisdom  or  Logos  in  John's 
gospel,  "  The  Lord  possessed  me  in  the  beginning 
of  his  ways,  before  the  works  of  old."  And  again, 
"  There  I  was  by  him  as  one  brought  up  with   him  ; 


52  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

and  I  was  daily  his  delight,  rejoicing  always  before 
him."     Prov.  8:   15,  16,  23,  30. 

I  am  aware  that  different  and  somewhat  con- 
flicting interpretations  have  been  given  by  learned 
men  to  this  portion  of  Proverbs.  The  reader  who 
wishes  to  go  into  a  minute  examination  of  it,  which 
our  limits  and  the  pressure  of  numerous  topics  will 
not  permit  us  to  do,  will  find  valuable  aids  in  the 
15th  volume  of  the  Bibliotheca  Sacra,  in  a  very  able 
and  exhaustive  article,  in  support  of  the  position 
that  Wisdom  in  these  passages  is  a  divine  Personal- 
ity, by  Professor  Barrows,  of  Andover. 

We  find  evidence  also,  that  the  doctrine  of  a  du- 
ality in  the  Godhead,  and  of  a  Wisdom  or  Maternal 
principle,  existed  widely  among  the  Jews,  from  vari- 
ous passages  in  that  portion  of  the  Jewish  writings 
which  are  regarded  by  the  Protestants  as  apocryphal. 
In  the  apocryphal  book,  entitled  the  Wisdom  of 
Solomon,  written  about  one  hundred  years  before 
Christ,  and  in  the  Greek  language,  the  SOPHIA  or 
Wisdom  is  repeatedly  introduced,  and  in  such  a  way 
as  to  indicate  personality.  In  the  9th  chapter,  4th 
verse,  it  is  said,  "  Give  me  the  SOPHIA  [or  Wisdom] 
which  sitteth  by  thy  throne"  At  the  ninth  verse,  she 
is  represented  as  being  present  with  God  when  he 
made  the  world.  And  I  think  it  is  worthy  of  notice, 
that  in  the  1st  and  2d  verses  of  the  9th  chapter,  So- 


GOD  IS  UNITY  AND  DC/A II TV.  53 

phia  or  Wisdom  is  used  as  a  parallel  expression,  and 
as  synonymous  with  Logos.  It  is  the  same  in  the 
12th  verse  of  the  16th  chapter.  Similar  passages, 
and  which  have  been  understood,  to  some  extent,  as 
indicating  a  Motherhood  or  maternal  personality  in 
the  Divine  Nature,  are  found  also  in  the  apocry- 
phal book,  entitled,  the  Wisdom  of  the  Son  of  Si- 
rach. 

9. — In  the  Jewish  Cabala,  or  traditional  script- 
ural commentary,  which  began  to  be  collected  some 
years  before  the  coming  of  Christ,  there  are  eviden- 
ces of  such  a  belief.  Mrs.  Child,  in  a  work  entitled 
"  The  Progress  of  Religious  Ideas,''  has  made  refer- 
ence to  this  fact  in  a  passage  near  the  commence- 
ment of  her  second  volume.  "  According  to  the 
cabalistic  doctrine,"  she  says,  "  God  was  pure,  un- 
created light,  existing  by  the  necessity  of  its  own 
nature,  filling  the  immensity  of  space,  and  contain- 
ing within  itself  the  principle  of  life  and  motion. 
The  souls  of  all  beings  were  portions  of  Him,  and 
had  existed  in  Him.  All  forms  of  being  were  mere- 
ly manifestations  of  his  eternal,  indwelling  ideas. 
The  Wisdom  of  the  Eternal  they  supposed  to  be  a 
feminine  deity,  whom  they  called  SOPHIA." 

10. — The  most  satisfactory  announcement,  how- 
ever, on  this  deeply  interesting  subject,  is  that  which 
occurs  in  the  generally   recognized   Scriptures  ;  and 


54  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

is  to  be  found  in  the  first  chapter  of  John's  Gospel. 
To  understand  its  full  force,  we  must  keep  in  mind, 
what  I  think  a  careful  and  critical  examination  will 
fully  justify,  the  identity  of  the  Logos  and  the  Sophia. 
"  In  the  beginning  was  the  Logos  or  Word  ;  and  the 
Word  was  with  God,  and  the  Word  was  God."  ■  In 
other  words ;  God,  the  great  positive  principle  of 
the  universe,  the  divine  Personality,  which  is  char- 
acterized especially  by  the  attributes  of  power  and 
causation,  existed  in  the  beginning,  and  as  the  ante- 
cedent of  all  created  things.  But  He  had  a  com- 
panion ;  He  did  not  exist  alone.  The  Word  or  Lo- 
gos, the  Wisdom  or  Sophia,  different  expressions 
for  the  same  principle  of  Eternal  Life,  was  with  Him. 
And  the  Logos  was  God ;  not  only  with  God,  but 
was  God. 

ii. — An  Infinite  Love,  existing  as  a  positive  per- 
sonality, implies  and  requires,  as  the  complement  to 
its  own  nature,  a  correspondent  existence,  receptive  of 
whatever  it  is  able  to  communicate  ;  in  other  words, 
an  Infinite  Beloved.  On  no  other  supposition  can 
we  understand  how  the  wants  of  its  affectional  na- 
ture, for  we  cannot  suppose  that  God  is  destitute  of 
such  a  nature,  can  be  met.  The  personality  of  the 
infinite  Love,  which  is  characterized  by  the  attributes 
of  causation  and  power,  would  fail  in  the  great  pur- 
poses of  being,  and  thus  would  essentially  destroy 


GOD  IS  UNIT Y  A ND  DUAIITY.  55 

itself,  if — speaking  after  the  imperfect  manner  of 
men — it  were  not  enfolded  in  the  arms  of  the  Eter- 
nal Wisdom,  the  Logos,  the  Sophia.  Such,  in  the 
somewhat  mystic  words  of  the  Apostle  John,  words 
liable,  perhaps,  to  be  misunderstood  or  perverted, 
but  nevertheless  significant  of  a  truth  of  heavenly 
beauty,  is  the  announcement  of  the  infinite  Pater- 
nit)'  and  the  Infinite  Motherhood. 

Undoubtedly  the  language  of  John,  like  every- 
thing else  that  takes  the  imperfect  form  of  words,  is 
susceptible  of  criticism.  We  are  aware  there  are 
those  who  are  of  opinion  that  the  expressions  he 
employs  can  be  explained  on  the  ground  that  the 
Logos  is  the  name  of  an  attribute  merely,  and  not 
of  a  personality.  But  it  must  be  admitted,  I  think, 
especially  when  all  the  facts  brought  to  notice  in  the 
various  passages  are  carefully  compared,  that  such 
an  explanation  is  not  the  most  natural  and  obvious 
one. 

12. — The  thought,  which  finds  its  expression  in 
the  fact  of  celestial  maternity,  makes  its  appearance 
in  other  quarters.  The  word  Logos,  as  applicable 
to  God,  and  used  in  a  way  to  indicate,  in  the  opinion 
of  many,  a  divine  personality,  is  found  in  the  writ- 
ings of  Philo  of  Alexandria,  a  learned  Jew,  who 
wrote  a  number  of  works  in  Greek  previous  to  the 
time   of  John.      According   to   a   statement    to   be 


56  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

found  in  the  Critical  Greek  Testament  of  Dr.  Alford, 
Philo  identifies  the  Logos  with  the  Sophia,  using  the 
terms  as  convertible ;  a  circumstance  of  a  good  deal 
of  interest  in  connection  with  the  history  of  the  use 
of  these  terms.  It  is  worthy  of  remark,  also,  that 
the  Logos,  as  the  Eternal  Reason,  and  spoken  of  in 
such  a  way  as  to  imply,  if  not  directly  affirm,  person- 
ality, has  a  place  in  the  writings  of  Plato.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  suppose,  however,  that  John,  who 
leaned  on  Jesus'  bosom,  and  learned  sympathetic- 
ally, as  well  as  in  other  forms  of  instruction,  the 
great  truths  that  had  their  lodgement  there,  derived 
his  views,  as  some  have  conjectured,  from  either 
Plato  or  Philo.  He  had  other  and  higher  sources  of 
knowledge.  Nor  is  it  necessary  to  suppose  with  Dr. 
Adam  Clarke  on  the  other  hand,  although  there  are 
some  facts  which  look  in  that  direction,  that  Plato 
derived  his  knowledge  on  this  subject,  to  whatever 
extent  it  may  have  existed,  either  directly  or  in- 
directly from  the  Jews.  There  is  reason  to  believe 
that  many  of  the  leading  philosophers  of  Greece, 
including  Socrates,  Plato,  Pythagoras  and  Zeno  in 
the  number,  were  true  and  earnest  seekers  after 
moral  and  religious  truth.  And  it  is  true  of  all 
men  in  all  ages  of  the  world — not  an  accident  but 
an  eternal  principle — that  they  who  seek  in  sim- 
plicity and  sincerity  of  spirit  shall  not  fail  to  find, 


GOD  IS  UNITY  AND  DUALITY.  57 

Scholars  well  understand,  and  perhaps  more  fully 
so  at  the  present  time  than  at  any  antecedent 
period,  that  there  are  rtiany  thoughts  and  sugges- 
tions in  the  doctrines  and  writings  of  Socrates  and 
Plato,  in  particular,  which  harmonize  well  with  the 
doctrines  of  the  Scriptures.  The  same  infinite  Mind, 
which  has  never  ignored  its  children  in  any  coun- 
try or  in  any  age,  may  have  been  the  source  of 
knowledge  in  both  cases. 

13. — The  doctrine  under  consideration  makes  its 
appearance  from  time  to  time  subsequently  to  the 
time  of  Christ  and  his  immediate  successors.  It  is 
found  for  instance,  in  the  writings  of  the  learned 
Valentinus,  who  lived  in  the  second  century,  a  Jew 
by  birth,  but  educated  in  Alexandria,  and  subse- 
quently resident  in  Rome.  He  regarded  the  Su- 
preme Being,  in  the  first  or  earliest  aspect  in  which 
he  presents  himself,  as  a  great  Primal  Essence,  a 
sort  of  unfathomable  Abyss  of  Existence,  an  im- 
measurable ocean  of  life.  His  vast  primal  Existence 
cither  gradually  develops  itself,  or  manifests  itself 
connaturally  and  from  the  beginning,  as  Aeons  or 
Powers,  which,  as  they  were  far  removed  according 
to  Neander,  "  from  abstract  notional  attributes," 
were  probably  regarded  by  Valentinus  in  the  light 
of  Personalities.  And  these  appear  to  be  repre- 
sented as  complements  or  correspondences  to  each 

3* 


53 


ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 


other,  namely,  as  Positive  or  Causative  on  the  one 
hand,  and  as  Receptive  on  the  other.  He  speaks 
of  the  Aeon  Sophia,  or  the  Eternal  Wisdom,  as 
unfolding  itself,  though  at  first  weakly  and  imper- 
fectly, as  the  designing  or  contriving  mind  of  the 
universe  ;  in  other  words  the  fashioning  or  artistic 
power.  It  at  last  incarnates  itself  in  Christ,  who 
in  his  human  nature  is  the  highest  finite  out-birth ; 
the  beginning  or  Elder  Brother  of  a  great  family, 
who  may  be  expected  to  inherit  the  truth  and 
purity  which,  in  his  human  nature,  were  manifested 
in  him.  The  doctrine  of  Valentinus  is  undoubtedly 
in  many  respects  complex  and  obscure  ;  and  these 
few  sentences  which  give  the  most  favorable  aspect, 
necessarily  impart  a  very  imperfect  idea  of  it.  But 
all  that  it  is  important  here  to  know  is,  that  it 
recognizes  in  the  Divine  Nature  the  fact  of  innate 
or  connatural  powers  and  personalities,  which  may 
be  regarded  as  distinct  and  self-conscious  in  their 
manifestations,  though  having  a  common  basis  of 
existence,  and  also  as  being  correspondent  and  com- 
plementary as  Positive  and  Receptive,  as  Father- 
hood and  Motherhood.* 

14. — Other  writers,  among  whom  Heracleon  and 
Barsanides  may  be    particularly  named,  who    lived 

*  See  Neander's   History  of  the  Christian  Religion  and  Church. 
Vol.  I.     Ait  on  Valentine  and  his  School. 


GOD  IS  UNITY  AArD  DUALITY. 


59 


subsequently  to  Valentinus,  may  be  regarded  as 
sympathizing  with  him,  and  as  being  essentially  of  the 
same  school  of  religious  thought.  Not  unfrequently 
they  apply  the  term  SopJiia,  or  Wisdom  (the  term 
adopted  by  all  these  writers  from  the  Greek  version 
of  the  striking  passage  in  the  bo.ok  of  Proverbs, 
which  has  already  been  named),  in  such  a  way,  and 
in  such  connected  epithets,  as  not  only  to  indicate 
the  fact  of  personality,  but  that  divine  and  eternal 
relation  of  Fatherhood  and  Motherhood  to  which 
our  attention  in  this  chapter  is  particularly  directed. 
The  doctrine  is  found  in  Clement  of  Alexandria, 
who  also  lived  subsequently  to  Valentinus,  and 
whose  views  of  religious  truth  were  in  other  respects 
somewhat  different. 

15. — In  coming  down  to  later  times  we  find  inti- 
mations of  the  doctrine  under  consideration  in  the 
writings  possessing  far  more  depth  and  value  than 
is  commonly  supposed,  of  the  Mystics  and  Quietists. 
Suso,  one  of  the  truly  devout  and  learned  German 
Mystics  of  the  fourteenth  century  wrote  a  work 
which  he  entitled  "  The  Book  of  Eternal  Wisdom." 
Suso  recognized  the  common  doctrine  on  the  subject, 
chat  this  living  and  personal  principle,  the  divine 
SOPHIA  of  the  Greek  mode  of  expression  and  the 
"  La  Sagesse  Eternelle"  as  he  calls  it  in  the  French, 
the  eternal  LOGOS  or  Wisdom,  that  dwelt  with  God 


60  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

and  was  God,  bowed  itself  to  the  sphere  of  our  err- 
ing humanity,  and  became  incarnated  in  Jesus  of 
Nazareth.  And  he  expressly  teaches,  near  the  close 
of  the  first  chapter,  that  we  have  a  knowledge  in  its 
higher  or  pre-existent  state  by  means  of  the  knowl- 
edge which  we  have  of  Christ  in  his  lower  or  incar- 
nate nature.  WISDOM  speaks,  "  If  thou  wouldst 
contemplate  me,"  she  says  "  in  my  ineffable  Divinity, 
thou  must  gain  a  knowledge  of  me  in  my  suffering 
humanity,"  a  declaration  which  contains  volumes  of 
true  knowledge.  It  is  difficult  to  read  the  work  to 
which  we  have  referred,  without  recognizing  in  it 
the  deep  conviction  on  the  part  of  the  writer,  of  a 
Personality  in  the  Divine  Nature,  of  the  same  essen- 
tiality of  being,  with  God  and  of  God,  and  yet  enti- 
tled to  be  characterized  by  that  attribute  of  Mother- 
hood, without  which  the  infinite  Fatherhood,  dear 
as  it  is,  becomes  a  misnomer  and  a  nullity,  Suso 
lived  in  the  fifteenth  century.  At  an  earlier  period 
in  the  twelfth  century,  Richard  of  the  Abbey  of 
St.  Victor  in  Paris  used  expressions  which  involve 
the  same  doctrine. 

1 6.  At  a  later  period  Jacob  Boehmen,  a  Mystic, 
though  in  some  respects  differing  from  the  school  of 
Suso  and  Tauler  recognized  the  doctrine  of  the  Di- 
vine Motherhood.  We  can  make  nothing  else  of  his 
frequent  mention  of  the  "  Virgin  Sophia,"  whom  he 


GOD  IS  UNITY  A  ND  D  UA II TY.  6 1 

describes  in  various  passages  as  the  "  Divine  Wis- 
dom," as  "  Eternal,"  and  as  a  "  Living  Essentiality." 
If  we  understand  him  rightly,  it  was  the  Sophia,  the 
Wisdom  or  Maternal  ESSENTIA  or  Personality  of  the 
Godhead,  which  incarnated  itself  in  Christ,  and  which 
caused  him,  in  a  mother's  Spirit  though  in  a  male 
form,  to  endure  his  great  sufferings  in  behalf  of  a 
world  which  was  to  be  born  into  a  saved  and  regen- 
erated life  of  him  and  through  him.  Not  unfre- 
quently  the  language  of  Christ,  when  it  is  allowed  to 
enter  and  to  leave  its  true  impress  on  the  interiors 
of  the  soul,  has  the  sound  and  import  of  a  mother's 
language  :  "  Oh,  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem,"  he  exclaims 
with  true  maternal  feeling,  "how  often  would  I  have 
gathered  thy  children  together,  even  as  a  hen  gath- 
ereth  her  chickens  under  her  wings,  and  ye  would 
not!" — Matt.  23:  37.  The  language  which  he 
utters  on  the  cross  is  the  very  language  of  a  loving 
mother,  who  is  willing  to  suffer  and  even  die  for  her 
erring  children,  if  she  can  thereby  bring  them  back 
to  their  father's  house  and  to  truth.  "  Father,  for- 
give them,  for  they  know  not  what  they  do." 

17.  A  few  centuries  ago,  a  sect  came  into  exist- 
ence in  Holland  and  England,  who  took  the  name 
of  Familists,  or  Family  of  Love.  Some  years  later, 
there  appeared  in  England  a  sect  whose  views  were 
similar  in  some  leading  respects  to  those  of  the  Fam- 


62  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

ilists,  who  took  the  name  of  Philadelphians.  In  some 
of  the  writings  which  originated  in  these  religious 
movements,  we  find  evidence  of  the  same  tendency 
to  recognize  the  Maternal  Principle  as  a  true  and 
distinct  Personality  in  the  Godhead.  One  of  these 
works  is  entitled  u  The  Great  Crisis/'  published 
anonymously,  but  generally  ascribed  to  a  pious  and 
learned  man  by  the  name  of  Roach.  References  to 
the  subject  which  we  have  been  considering,  will  be 
found  in  (t  The  Great  Crisis,''  on  pages  93,  94,  and 
95.  Roach,  as  is  common  with  all  these  writers, 
speaks  of  the  Motherhood  of  the  Infinite,  under  the 
name  of  the  "  Virgin  Sophia.''  His  language,  in  the 
pages  referred  to  and  in  other  places,  is  somewhat 
obscure,  as  if  he  hesitated  to  give  a  clear  announce- 
ment to  views  which  would  be  likely  to  meet  with 
much  opposition  ;  but  on  a  careful  examination  of 
them,  there  seems  to  be  no  doubt  as  to  his  meaning. 
On  page  93  we  find  the  following  passage:  "That 
the  doctrine  of  the  Sophia,  or  Wisdom  of  God,  as 
represented  in  the  Virgin  nature  or  Female  property, 
is  no  new  thing,  will  appear  from  what  Solomon  has 
written  so  peculiarly  of  her,  and  from  Christ's  own 
expressions,  Luke  7:  35."  The  passage  in  Luke  is 
this  :  "  But  Wisdom  is  justified  of  all  her  children.'' 
Wisdom  here,  as  Roach  understands  it  and  explains 
it  in  a  brief  remark,  is  the  Eternal   Mother.     And 


GOD  IS  UNITY  AND  DUALITY.  63 

then,  speaking  of  the  doctrine  farther,  he  immedi- 
ately adds,  "  Nor  has  it  been  without  peculiar  regard 
in  the  writings,  also,  of  the  ancient  Fathers,  though 
by  them  more  generally  applied  to  the  Divine  Wis- 
dom as  derivative  in  the  Son  (a  meaning  which  is 
good  and  true  in  its  place).  But  the  sense  of  the 
Primitive  Church,  as  taking  it  in  the  superior  sense 
also,  [namely  as  applicable  to  the  Sophia  or  Pre-ex- 
istent  Christ]  appears  from  that  noted  passage  of 
Tertullian  versus  Hermogenenem,  cap.  iv."  This 
passage,  which  Roach  understands  as  sustaining  his 
views,  he  quotes  and  comments  upon. 

18. — As  we  approach  nearer  our  own  times,  we 
find  the  same  view  taken.  It  differs,  it  will  be  no- 
ticed, from  the  generally  received  view  chiefly  in  go- 
ing a  step  farther  and  indicating,  though  of  course 
very  imperfectly,  the  nature  of  the  relations  existing. 
The  doctrine  that  the  "  second  person  of  the  Trinity 
as  it  is  frequently  denominated  by  writers,  sustains 
a  relation  which  may  properly  be  expressed  by  the 
term  Motherhood,  is  recognized  in  the  views  and 
writings  of  the  sect  of  the  United  Society  of  Believ- 
ers commonly  called  Shakers.  In  the  "  Summary 
View,"  so  called,  which  is  published  under  the  au- 
thority of  the  Society,  and  contains  a  brief  exposition 
of  their  doctrines,  it  is  said,  p.  219,  speaking  of  Ann 
Lee,  that    the    imaere    and   likeness   of  the  Eternal 


64  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

Mother  was  formed  in  her  as  the  first-born  daughter. 
And  again  it  is  said  on  the  same  page,  that  the  "  hu- 
man tabernacle  of  Ann  Lee,"  meaning  her  earthly 
body,  "was  but  flesh  and  blood  like  those  of  all 
other  women  ;  but  it  was  a  chosen  vessel,  occupied 
as  an  instrument  by  the  Spirit  of  Christ ;  "  that  is  to 
say,  by  the  same  pure  and  celestial  Spirit  which 
dwelt  in  Christ.  "  It  is  this  Spirit/'  it  is  afterward 
said,  "  which  is  the  image  and  likeness  of  the  Eternal 
Mother r  At  page  217  it  is  remarked  in  relation  to 
Christ,  it  was  "  necessary  that  the  human  tabernacle 
of  Jesus  should  be  created  by  the  immediate  opera- 
tion of  the  Eternal  Father  and  Mother." 

19. — The  doctrine,  that  the  Divine  Nature  is 
dual  in  its  personalities,  and  that  this  duality  implies 
and  includes  the  fact  of  a  divine  maternity,  is  adopt- 
ed and  advocated  by  the  sect  known  as  Bible  Com- 
munists. The  leading  doctrines  of  this  people  are 
found  in  a  work  entitled  the  Berean ;  a  work  which 
is  characterized  by  acuteness  of  thought  and  reason- 
ing, and  by  no  small  share  of  biblical  learning. 

"  We  believe,"  says  the  author  of  this  work  in 
his  Preface,  in  the  Duality  of  the  Godhead  ;  and  that 
Duality,  in  our  view,  is  imaged  in  the  twofold  per- 
sonality of  the  first  man,  who  was  made  male  and 
female,  Gen.  1  :  27.  The  doctrine  is  brought 
out    more    fully    in    the    chapter    on    the     Divine 


GOD  IS  UNITY  AND  DUALITY.  6$ 

Nature.  On  page  87  are  the  following  expressions : 
"  For  our  part,  instead  of  having  any  repugnance 
against  the  idea  that  God  is  a  bi-personal  Being  [that 
is,  one  in  essential  nature,  but  distinct  and  correlative 
in  dual  personalities]  we  find  all  our  natural  prepos- 
sessions in  its  favor.  We  are  quite  willing  that  the 
indications  of  the  created  universe  should  be  true  ; 
that  woman,  as  well  as  man,  should  have  her  arche- 
type in  the  primary  sphere  of  existence  ;  that  the 
Receptive  as  well  as  the  Active  principle,  subordi- 
nation as  well  as  power,  should  have  its  representa- 
tive in  the  Godhead.  And  we  believe  that  an  un- 
sophisticated child  would  much  prefer  the  family 
idea  of  a  dual  head  over  all,  a  Father  and  Mother  of 
the  universe,  to  the  conception  of  a  solitary  God." 

20. — We  will  only  add  further,  that  the  Catholic 
Church  is  often  regarded,  with  how  much  reason  we 
will  not  undertake  to  say,  as  embodying  the  idea  of 
the  Motherhood  element  which  exists  in  the  Infi- 
nite, in  its  recognition  of  the  holy  or  dcific  nature 
of  Mary,  the  mother  of  Jesus,  and  in  the  high  hon- 
ors, and  even  worship,  which  it  is  understood  to 
render  to  her.  In  the  paintings  of  the  great  mas- 
ters, which  often  adorn  the  Catholic  churches,  and 
particularly  the  Cathedrals,  the  admiring  and  tearful 
eye  of  the  worshipper  often  rests  with  the  deepest 
reverence  and  hope  upon  that  benign  countenance, 


66  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

which  becomes  to  the  eye  of  faith  the  imperfect  and 
yet  beautiful  symbol  of  the  great  and  overshadow- 
ing Maternity,  which  exists  innate  and  glorious  in 
the  Godhead. 

21. — Such  appears  to  be  the  new  and  dawning 
thought  of  the  world  on  this  important  subject ;  at 
first  but  dimly  appearing  in  the  Scriptures ;  but  in 
accordance  with  the  promise  of  the  great  Teacher, 
who  said,  "  when  the  Spirit  of  truth  is  come  he  will 
guide  you  into  all  truth/'  revealed  at  last  with  clear- 
er and  ever-increasing  distinctness  by  the  Holy 
Spirit,  or  Spirit  of  God,  or  Spirit  of  universal  truth 
and  love,  finding  its  way  into  and  operating  intelli- 
gently and  effectively  in  the  hearts  of  humble  and 
sincere  men ;  and  thus  unfolding  in  these  latter 
days  the  great  and  eternal  facts  which  harmonize 
with   and  which  sustain  the  progress  of  humanity. 

It  is  with  interest  therefore,  in  opening  the  vol- 
umes of  a  remarkable  man,  the  late  Theodore  Par- 
ker, who  accepted  the  doctrines  of  the  Absolute  Re- 
ligion while  he  demurred  vigorously  to  some  of  the 
positions  of  dogmatic  theology,  that  we  find  him 
not  only  announcing  God  as  the  primal,  unific,  and 
causative  principle  of  things,  but  also  defending  the 
truth,  hardly  less  essential  and  important,  of  the 
Personality  of  God,   and   announcing   still   further, 


GOD  IS  UNITY  AND  DUALITY.  67 

with  a  boldness  and  clearness  indicative  of  the 
strength  of  his  convictions,  the  duality  of  the  Di- 
vine Nature  as  being  Motherhood  as  well  as  Fath- 
erhood. 


CHAPTER  VI. 
The  Son  of  God. 

I. — The  duality  of  the  Divine  Existence,  involv- 
ing- the  fact  of  Fatherhood  and  Motherhood,  neces- 
sitates  that  further  unfoldment  of  being,  which  is 
implied  in,  and  is  not  inappropriately  expressed  by, 
the  word  Trinity.  Around  this  grand  and  historic 
word,  which  alternately  attracts  and  repels  by  the 
greatness  of  the  mystery  involved  in  it,  the  world's 
thought  and  the  world's  controversy  have  for  ages 
revolved.  As  it  is  not  our  object,  however,  to  dis- 
cuss religious  truths  in  the  precisions  of  their  estab- 
lished dogmatic  forms,  but  rather  as  they  present 
themselves  in  their  necessary  facts  and  relations  to 
the  enlighted  view  of  the  whole  human  mind,  we 
leave  the  Trinity,  as  one  of  the  generally  accepted 
methods  of  expression,  to  complete  and  verify  itself 
by  its  own  logical  processes,  and  in  its  own  time 
and  way. 

2. — But  before  proceeding  further,  I  think  it  will 
be  necessary  briefly  to  say  something  of  a  personal 


THE  SON  OF  GOD.  69 

nature,  in  order  to  a  proper  understanding  of  my 
own  position,  and  as  explanatory  in  part  of  my  own 
tendencies  of  thought.  I  hope  the  reader  will  bear 
with  me  and  sympathize,  when  I  say  that  I  am 
a  believer  in,  and  a  lover  of  the  biblical  Scrip- 
tures. I  frankly  and  joyfully  acknowledge,  that  I 
have  found  in  them  not  only  an  enlightening,  but  I 
trust  something  of  a  positive  and  renovating  power. 
At  the  same  time  I  am  obliged  to  say  further,  that 
under  the  influence  of  inward  suggestions,  which  I 
will  not  stop  to  explain  and  define,  I  have  thought 
it  right  and  felt  it  a  duty,  to  compare  the  moral  and 
religious  revelations  embodied  in  the  Bible  with  the 
moral  and  religious  thought  of  different  ages  and 
nations.  I  wished  to  ascertain  in  this  way,  and 
with  the  aid  of  the  histories  of  philosophical  opin- 
ions, the  relation  of  the  Scriptures  to  the  moral 
wants  and  the  enlightenment  of  universal  humanity. 
And  in  the  fulfilment  of  these  desires,  I  have  not 
only  examined  the  Scriptures  to  some  extent  in  the 
original  languages,  but  have  trodden  the  soil  of  Pal- 
estine, which  may  be  regarded  as  a  living  commen- 
tary;  and  have  verified,  or  attempted  to  verify,  so 
far  as  illustration  and  verification  can  now  come 
from  those  sources,  the  Scriptural  affirmations  in 
the  birth-place  of  their  origin  ; — in  Nazareth  and 
Bethlehem,  on  the  banks  of  the  Jordan,  in  the  sacred 


-0  ABSOLUTE  RELIGI 

places  of  Jerusalem,  in  the  terrible  deserts  and  on 
the  rocky  summits  of  Sinai.  And  not  only  this :  I 
have  read,  as  many  others  have  done,  the  truth  of 
the  declarations  of  the  Bible  in  the  direct  as  well  as 
the  comparative  history  of  nations,  and  in  the  rec- 
ords of  my  own  heart.  And  therefore,  without  for- 
getting the  intelligence  and  the  conclusions  of  oth- 
ers,  I  frankly  affirm  that  the  Bible  is  no  fable  to 
me.  I  have  no  hesitancy  in  saying,  that  in  my 
view,  subject  to  the  condition  of  a  candid  and  wise 
interpretation,  the  Bible  is  the  affirmation  of  the 
highest  intelligence,  and  is  the  eternal  ,k  Word  of 
God." 

3. — But  there  is  another  view,  which  it  would  be 
unwise  and  unphilosophical  to  omit.  I  remember 
also,  that  God  is  not  only  the  God  of  the  Bible,  but 
the  God  of  all  nature,  and  of  all  history,  and  of  all 
things.  And  so  much  so  that  He  cannot  be  sepa- 
rated without  the  denial  of  the  essential  elements 
of  his  nature  from  any  thing  and  every  thing  which 
exists  ;  but  on  the  contrary  is  found  to  be  and  can- 
not possibly  be  otherwise  than  universal,  unchange- 
able, and  eternal  in  all  that  He  is,  in  all  that  He 
does,  and  in  all  that  He  utters.  And  it  is,  there- 
fore, I  believe,  that  the  word  of  God  in  his  Reveal- 
ed Religion,  known  as  the  Bible  or  Scriptures,  and 
the  word  of  God  in  the  Absolute  Religion,  when  in- 


THE  SOX  OF  GOD.  -  i 

tcrprctcd  in  the  true  and  divine  light  of  things,  are 
and  must  be  the  same.  It  is  possible  that  men 
may  fail  to  harmonize  the  two  but  the  harmony  ex- 

4. — It  is  well  known  that  theologians,  looking 
perhaps  with  the  theologic  eye,  have  found  a  Trin- 
ity in  the  Bible.  We  do  not  say  that  they  have 
always  understood  or  expressed  it  rightly;  or  that 
their  views,  often  divergent  from  each  other,  are 
always  entitled  to  assent.  Nevertheless  it  is  the 
general  testimony  of  their  writings  and  creeds  that 
they  have  succeeded  in  finding  it  there  ;  at  least  in 
the  essential  nature  of  the  thing.  And  such  is  my 
own  belief.  And  it  is  not  surprising  to  me  that 
God,  whose  wisdom  always  adapts  itself  in  its  exer- 
cise to  the  existing  state  of  things,  communicated 
this  great  truth,  in  the  early  periods  of  the  world,  in 
the  dogmatic  form  and  simply  as  a  doctrine  and 
not  as  a  philosophy.  As  thus  stated,  and  standing 
by  itself  alone,  it  is  not  free  from  obscurity  ;  and 
there  is  a  class  of  minds  which  do  not  readily  accept 
it.  But  the  God  of  the  Bible  is  the  God  of  univer- 
sal nature.  And  it  is  not  strange  that  in  these  lat- 
ter days,  with  all  the  enlightenment  of  arts  and  let- 
ters and  of  moral  and  religious  progress,  some  of  the 
obscurities  of  the  Bible  are  explained  and  reconciled 
by  the  light  of  the  Absolute  Religion. 


m2  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

5. — To  the  thoughtful  mind  it  is  a  natural  sug- 
gestion, that  the  duality  of  the  Divine  Existence, 
written  everywhere  in  the  book  of  nature,  necessi- 
tates a  Trinity.  The  train  of  thought  in  the  case  is 
essentially  this.  It  is  not  only  true,  as  the  apostle 
Paul  teaches  us,  but  it  is  a  truth  which  harmonizes 
with  the  nature  and  position  of  man  who  reasons 
constantly  from  effects  to  causes,  that  we  learn  the 
things  of  God  from  the  things  that  exist.  In  other 
words,  the  effect  in  the  principles  and  methods  of 
its  being,  is  antecedently  in  the  cause.  And  what 
do  we  find  in  the  effect?  In  the  first  place  it  pre- 
sents itself  as  a  duality.  But  it  does  not  stop  there. 
We  always  find  that  the  out-birth  of  that  which  in 
the  order  of  nature  goes  before,  supplementing  and 
carrying  out  the  fact  of  duality,  in  other  words  the 
added  fact  which  constitutes  the  Trinity,  every- 
where manifests  itself  in  the  objects  of  the  world 
around  us.  Everywhere  there  is  a  duality  of  exist- 
ence, resulting  in  a  reproduction  which  constitutes 
a  trinity.  But  the  things  which  exist,  and  which 
necessarily  carry  with  them  the  evidence  of  the 
highest  wisdom,  are  but  the  reflex  or  the  mirror  of 
the  great  First  Cause  from  which  they  came.  The 
cause  holds  the  effect  in  its  arms  and  stamps  its 
image  upon  it.  And  thus  the  duality  which  in  the 
objects  of  nature  around  us  always  implies  and  ne- 


THE  SON  OF  GOD.  .  73 

cessitatcs  the  fact  of  a  Trinity,  reveals  in  the  light 
of  the  relation  of  effects  and  causes,  the  antecedent 
but  correspondent  fact,  not  only  of  the  duality  but 
also  of  the  tri-unity  of  the  Infinite. 

6. — If  we  are  right  therefore  in  the  view  which 
we  take,  we  must  supplement  the  eternal  Fatherhood 
and  Motherhood  by  the  eternal  Son.     The  eternal 
Son,  or  the  Son  "  eternally  proceeding,"  as  it  is  some- 
times theologically  expressed,  is  the  great  and  un 
ceasing   out-birth    of    the     Divine    Duality.     That 
which  being  in  God,  is  necessarily  in  its  appropriate 
time  born  out  ^/"God,  is  the  Son  of  God.     But  the 
Son  of  God  is  a  wide  and  mighty  form  of  expression 
wnich,  in  order  to  embrace  the  whole  truth  included 
in  it,  may  be  presented  to  our  notice,  first,  generi- 
cally  or  in  its  most  general  form  ;  and  second,  specifi- 
cally or  in  relation  to  that   remarkable   manifestation 
of  the  divine  in  the  human,  (undoubtedly  the  most 
remarkable    fact    in    human    or    any  other  history) 
which  is  known  as  both  Son  of  God  and  Son  of  Man. 
7. — Generically,  or  considered  in  the  whole  of  its 
extent,  the  trinal  out-birth,  otherwise  called  the  Son 
of  God,  without  which  the  eternal  Fatherhood   and 
Motherhood    could    have    neither  name  nor  power 
nor  meaning,  is  the  whole  of  creation  from  its  lowest 
to  its  highest  form.     Spoken  of  in  terms  suggested 
by  the  analogy  of  the  human  form,  which  in  some 
4 


74  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

respects  may  be  regarded  as  the  physical  similitude 
and  outward  portraiture  of  God,  the  myriads  of  ex- 
istences which  form  the  lowest  stratas  or  divisions 
of  beings,  constitute  the  FEET  ;  the  highest  develop- 
ments and  classifications  of  existence  constitute  the 
head ;  and  the  intermediate  grades,  all  in  their  ap- 
propriate places  and  fulfilling  their  appropriate  offi- 
ces, make  out  and  manifest  the  completeness  and 
beauty  of  this  boundless  and  unceasing  out-birth  or 
generation  of  positive  and  separate  life. 

8. — So  that  not  an  insect  that  floats  in  the  air, 
nor  a  fish  that  swims  in  the  sea,  nor  a  bird  that 
sings  in  the  forests,  nor  a  wild  beast  that  roams  on 
the  mountains  ;  not  one  is  or  by  any  possibility  can 
be  shut  out  and  excluded  from  the  meaning  and 
the  fact  of  the  divine  Sonship,  considered  in  this 
generic  or  universal  sense.  Under  that  significant 
and  glorious  name  in  its  generic  and  widest  import 
are  included  all  possible  forms  and  degrees  of  being, 
whatever  may  be  their  distinctive  character,  which 
sustain  the  relation  of  effect  or  createdness  to  the 
great  Causative  Centre  which  lies  hidden  in  what 
may  be  called  the  Dual  Infinite.  And  this  Sonship 
of  universal  existence,  though  it  undoubtedly  sus- 
tains the  relation  of  effect  to  cause,  is  nevertheless 
so  closely  and  indissolubly  interwoven  with  the  Eter- 
nal source  from  which  it  springs,  that   it   may,  in   a 


THE  SON  OF  GOD. 


75 


proximate  but  most  important  sense,  be  said  of  it, 
that  it  is  without  beginning  and  without  end  ;  that 
no  time  in  its  specific  measurement  is  allowed  to 
mark  its  commencement  and  that  no  time,  unless 
the  same  can  be  said  of  God  himself,  can  announce 
the  hour  of  its  termination.  It  is  what  theologians, 
with  a  just  and  significant  expression,  have  some- 
times called  it,  the  eternal  Sonship,  or  a  Sonship  in 
eternal  procession.  In  other  words,  in  the  two-fold 
bosom  of  the  Dual  Infinite  there  exists  a  Sonship, 
which  identical  in  nature  but  discriminated  in  per- 
sonality, converts  two-foldness  into  tri-foldness,  du- 
ality into  trinity,  and  of  which  it  can  be  said  in  its 
objective  manifestation  it  is  always  being  born,  and 
in  the  mystery  of  its  subjective  existence  it  is  always 
in  the  bosom  of  its  eternal  birthplace  and  always 
in  readiness  to  be  born. 

9. — All  living  nature  then  in  all  the  variety  of 
its  forms,  being  only  the  out-birth  of  that  which  has 
existed  interiorly  and  subjectively  from  eternity,  is 
the  mighty  procession  of  form,  feeling  and  activity 
which,  in  virtue  of  its  birth-place,  constitutes  the 
Son  of  God.  And  in  this  vast  complexity  of  Son- 
ship,  including  all  possible  degrees  and  forms  and 
methods  of  being,  there  is  not  a  living  thing  that  is 
forgotten,  not  one  that  is  not  overshadowed  by  the 


j 6  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

divine  Love.  All  sheep  and  oxen,  and  the  cattle 
upon  a  thousand  hills,  and  the  young  lions  of  the 
forest,  and  the  fishes  of  the  sea,  and  the  birds  of  the 
air,  as  they  could  not  be  born  and  exist  without  God, 
have  a  right  to  be  called  the  children  of  God.  "  Are 
not  five  sparrows  sold  for  two  farthings,  and  not  one 
of  them  is  forgotten  before  God,"  "  thou  shalt  not 
muzzle  the  ox  that  treadeth  out  the  corn,"  "  thou 
givest  them  their  meat  in  due  season," — it  is  such 
expressions  as  these  which  show  the  loving  heart 
of  the  Infinite. 

And  little  does  that  man  know  of  the  greatness 
and  boundlessness  of  God's  universal  love  whose 
heart  is  not  touched  with  the  deepest  sympathy  for 
everything  that  exists,  no  matter  what  it  is  or  where 
it  is.  If  we  are  one  with  God  we  are  one  in  all  we 
can  do  to  contribute  to  the  happiness  of  everything 
God  has  made. 

10. — But  again  and  specifically  the  Sonship,  which 
constitutes  and  completes  the  divine  Unity,  not 
only  in  Duality  but  in  Trinity,  so  that  we  can  speak 
of  the  oneness  of  Eternal  Life  in  the  three-foldness 
of  Personality  and  relations,  the  One  in  Three  and 
the  Three  in  one,  is  found  in  Man.  Not  man  how- 
ever, in  the  first  form  of  life,  not  the  self-centred  and 
limited  Adamic  man,  (a  subject  on  which  we  shall 
have    something    explanatory    to    say    in    another 


THE  SON  OF  GOD. 


77 


place ;)  but  man  with  the  experience  of  the  second 
or  higher  birth,  which  expands  the  self-centred  into 
the  universal-centred  and  God-like  form  of  life  ;  man 
standing  at  the  head  and  as  the  comprehension  and 
the  perfection  of  all  lower  existences;  man  who 
cannot  separate  his  own  life  and  happiness  from  the 
life  and  happiness  of  all  other  beings,  man  in  his 
glorious  Christhood.  This  is  Sonship  in  the  specific 
and  higher  sense  ;  the  fulfilment  of  the  prayer  and 
hope  of  the  long  expectant  ages;  the  culmination 
of  humanity  in  the  Son  of  the  virgin  Mother. 

1 1. — I  stand  with  awe  in  the  presence  of  this  great 
out-birth.  The  true  man  was  born  :  the  effulgent 
model  and  ante-type  of  the  incoming,  heavenly  hu- 
manity ;  and  becoming  the  dwelling-place  of  God,  he 
embodied  the  glory  of  divinity  in  the  humbleness  of 
the  human  form  ;  and  in  virtue  of  that  which  was 
within  Him,  took  the  name  in  the  specific  and  more 
jjlorious  sense  of  the  term  of  the  Son  of  God.  I 
shall  be  pardoned  for  saying  it  is  my  earnest  prayer, 
that  I  may  understand  more  and  more  this  great 
advent  known  specifically  as  the  divine  Son.  I  do 
not  believe  that  a  true  philosophy  has  any  sympa- 
thy with  that  perversity  of  spiritual  perception 
which  turns  coldly  away  from  this  divine  brightness. 
The  expression  which  better  than  any  other  meets 
my  thoughts,  and  which  in  the  comprehension  of  its 


7$  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

meaning  reveals  the  evidence  of  its  divine  origin  is, 
"God  manifest  in  the  flesh."  Being  not  only  made 
in  the  similitude  of  man,  but  being  the  possessor  of 
a  man's  nature,  we  do  not  find  him  as  he  is  histori- 
cally represented,  exempt  from  human  weaknesses 
and  trials,  temptations  and  sorrows.  In  what  sense 
therefore,  is  it  possible  to  speak  of  him  as  the  mani- 
festation of  God  ?  This  is  a  great  question.  With 
a  view  to  the  better  understanding  of  it,  we  leave 
the  subject  here  until  we  shall  have  considered  in 
the  next  chapter  the  necessity  and  possibility  of  a 
divine  manifestation. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

Necessity  and  Possibility  of  a  Divine  Manifestation. 

I. — Religion,  considered  in  its  essential  nature, 
and  in  the  aspect  of  its  great  and  final  result,  is  and 
must  be  harmony  with  God.  Reason  as  we  may 
upon  the  subject,  it  will  be  found  in  the  end,  that 
it  cannot  be  anything  greater,  nor  anything  less,  nor 
anything  different  from  this.  But  harmony,  admit- 
ting there  is  a  slight  difference  in  the  import  of 
the  terms,  necessarily  implies  union ;  and  indeed 
might  properly  be  defined  as  the  completion  or  per- 
fection of  union  ;  and  in  the  case  of  intelligent  and 
moral  beings,  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  it  is 
and  must  be  conscious  union. 

2. — And  now  we  proceed  to  say  further,  that 
there  cannot  be  a  conscious  union,  especially  one 
which  rises  to  the  eminent  degree  which  entitles  it 
to  be  called  harmony,  without  a  knowledge  of  God. 
In  other  words,  in  order  to  this  result  of  harmony 
which  is  the  substance  of  religion,  God  must  make 
himself  known,  must  manifest  himself.     To  be   con- 


80  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

sciously  united  with  God  and  yet  without  a  knowl- 
edge of  God  is  a  contradiction  in  terms,  and  is  a 
moral  impossibility.  And  further/if  God  is  not  to 
be  manifested  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  himself 
known,  what  is  the  object  of  his  existence?  Why 
should  he  exist  at  all  ?  The  manifestation  of  God 
therefore,  in  some  important  respect,  so  that  we  can 
speak  of  him  intelligently  and  give  him  both  thought 
and  affection,  may  be  regarded  as  a  NECESSITY. 

3. — So  far  as  this,  the  Absolute  philosophy  ex- 
presses itself  with  confidence.  And  the  human 
heart,  that  which  in  man  feels  rather  than  thinks, 
but  which  embodies  truth  in  the  instincts  of  feeling, 
confirms  the  decision.  But  here  comes  a  difficulty. 
Granting  that  it  is  necessary  in  the  decisions  of  the 
human  intellect,  granting  that  it  is  necessary  to  meet 
the  conscious  wants  of  human  feeling,  is  it  a  thing 
which  is  possible  ?  Is  it  possible  for  the  Infinite  to 
manifest  itself  understanding^  to  the  finite?  Or 
taking  the  converse  proposition,  is  it  possible  for 
the  finite,  in  the  limitation  of  its  powers,  to  compre- 
hend that  which  is  without  limits?  In  the  view  of 
sound  reason  it  seems  to  be  necessary  to  answer 
these  questions  in  the  negative.  But  it  appears  to 
have  escaped  very  much  the  thoughts  and  knowledge 
of  men,  that  infinity  is  not  God  but  only  the  mode 
or  manner  of  his  existence,  namely,  the  extent  or 


DIVINE  MANIFESTATION.  gl 

degree  of  his  existence  ;  and  that  we  may  know  God 
in  the  essentiality  of  his  nature,  in  that  which  con- 
stitutes the  primal  and  deific  substance  of  his  being, 
although  it  may  be  true,  and  is  true,  that  we  cannot 
know  Him  on  account  of  the  limitations  of  our  pow- 
ers in  the  fullness  of  his  extent  or  degree.  In  other 
words,  if  we  cannot  know  God  in  his  degree  or  meas- 
urement, we  may  still  know  him,  which  is  of  far 
greater  importance,  in  his  truth  or  essence. 

4. — But  let  us  look  a  little  further.  If  infinity  is 
not  God  but  only  the  degree  or  extent  of  his  exist- 
ence, the  question  still  remains, — what  are  we  to 
understand  by  God,  and  what  is  it  which  constitutes 
the  primality  and  essence  of  his  being  ?  Do  we  or 
can  we  find  Him  in  the  true  and  higher  sense  in  his 
attributes  ?  Let  us  reflect  a  moment  on  this  impor- 
tant question.  Take  the  attribute  of  knowledge, 
even  when  it  is  considered  in  the  degree  or  extent 
of  infinitude,  and  is  properly  denominated  Omnisci- 
ence, does  it  make  or  constitute  God  ?  Sound  rea- 
son will  also  be  compelled  to  answer  here  in  the 
negative.  And  again,  God  is  a  being  of  power. 
But  does  the  attribute  of  power,  even  when  joined 
in  its  extent  with  infinitude  and  denominated  Om- 
nipotence, any  more  than  the  attribute  of  omnisci- 
ence make  or  constitute  God?  And  here  also  we 
are  compelled  to  answer,  that  such  cannot  possibly 
4* 


g2  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

be  the  case.     The  word  attribute  itself,  which  men 
agree  in  using  as  applicable  to  and  as  descriptive  in 
part  of  omniscience  and  omnipotence,  implies  that 
in  the  order  of  nature  there  is  and  must  be  a  prin- 
ciple back  of  these,  a  living  and  pre-eminent  primal- 
ity  which  will  call  knowledge  and  power  into  action 
and  give  them  and  all  other  attributes  their  appro- 
priate   direction    and    issues.      And    this    principle 
which,  as  we  have  already  seen  in  a  former  chapter, 
is  the  essential  and  eternal  life  of  the  divine  exist- 
ence, and  in  fact  constitutes  that  existence,  is  LOVE. 
And  this  interior  principle  which  constitutes  the  es- 
sential nature  of  God  and  to  which  are  appended 
the  attributes  that  operate  as  the  instruments  of  its 
decrees,  involves  in  itself  and  as  a  part  of  its   own 
nature,  an  ultimate  motive  power  which  is  the  basis 
of  the  activity  of  the  universe.     If  it  were  otherwise, 
in  other  words  if  there  were  a  destitution  and  ab- 
sence of  such  motive  power,  constituting  a  state  of 
things  which  could   properly  be    described    by  the 
word  indifference,   then   of  course   all    the    existing 
wonderful  activities  would  cease,  and  God  would  be 
practically  annihilated.     And  again,  if  this  interior 
principle   of  which  we  speak  were  not  indifference 
but  a  practical  or  motive  evil  principle,  then,  instead 
of  God   we  should  have  and  it  could  not  be   other- 
wise, an  infinite  Satan.     But  the  Absolute  philoso- 


DI  VINE  MA  NIFE  S  TA  TION.  8  3 

phy  affirms  as  well  as  the  Bible  and  in  confirmation 
of  the  Bible,  not  merely  that  God  exists  but  that 
God  is  Love.  And  hence  it  will  be  found,  and  all 
exhaustive  and  ultimate  researches  will  prove  it  to 
be  so,  that  every  exercise  of  his  omniscience  and 
omnipotence  or  other  attributes  is  dictated  by  be- 
neficence. 

5. — The  manifestation  of  himself  therefore,  which 
it  was  necessary  for  God  to  make,  and  which  the 
wants  of  an  erring-  and  suffering  humanity  required, 
and  which  the  Absolute  Religion  aiming  as  it  does 
at  the  establishment  of  universal  harmony  impera- 
tively demands,  was  the  manifestation  of  himself  in 
his  essential  nature  as  Love. 

The  manifestation  of  the  auxiliary  incidents  or  at- 
tributes of  the  Divine  Nature,  such  as  knowledge  and 
power,  and  especially  with  the  weight  and  expansion 
of  infinitude  attached  to  them,  when  standing  alone 
and  without  a  manifestation  of  that  interior  and  es- 
sential life  which  holds  them  in  its  hand  and  guides 
them  to  beneficent  issues,  was  calculated  to  frighten 
and  destroy  and  not  to  save  humanity.  But  in 
what  way  could  that  deeper  and  more  interior  man- 
ifestation of  God  as  Love,  which  alone  could  bring 
adjustment  and  peace  and  hope  to  men  be  made  ? 

The  question  which  now  presents  itself  was,  in 
some    important    sense,  the   great    problem    of  the 


g^  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

ages.  And  in  the  first  place  all  enlightened  philoso- 
phy will  agree  that  it  was  necessary  that  it  should 
be  made  within  the  sphere  of  humanity.  In  other 
words,  it  was  necessary  that  it  should  be  made  in 
such  a  way  that  man  with  the  limited  faculties  which 
he  possesses  and  with  precisely  such  faculties  in  kind 
as  he  possesses,  should  be  able  to  behold,  study  and 
comprehend  it. 

6. — But  something  more  is  necessary  than  this 
general  statement.  Shall  we  find  the  manifestation 
of  God  in  his  true  and  essential  nature,  as  some 
heathen  nations  have  foolishly  thought,  in  the  lower 
forms  of  creation,  in  birds  and  reptiles,  and  even  in 
inanimate  things  ?  That  such  an  idea  should  have 
existed  is  indeed  an  evidence  of  the  wants  and  crav- 
ings of  the  human  heart ;  and  perhaps  it  would  be 
unphilosophical  to  deny  that  there  is  an  element  of 
truth  in  it,  inasmuch  as  there  is  something  of  God 
in  all  the  creatures  of  God,  however  low  they  may 
be  in  the  scale  of  being.  But  the  darkened  belief 
which  accepts  the  manifestation  of  God  in  such  in- 
ferior things,  a  belief  to  which  the  Apostle  Paul  so 
feelingly  and  pointedly  alludes,  cannot  contribute  to 
man's  elevation;  but  on  the  contrary,  as  appears 
from  the  records  of  heathen  nations,  tends  greatly 
to  hold  him  fast  in  hopelessness  and  debasement. 
Nor  on  the  other  hand,  would  a  manifestation  made 


DIVINE  MANIFESTATION.  85 

iii  the  form  of  beings  above  the  sphere  of  humanity, 
through  forms  and  faculties  not  commensurable  with 
and  susceptible  of  being  interpreted  by  anything 
given  to  man,  have  been  of  any  more  avail.  It 
might  not  have  tended  to  debase,  but  it  is  not  ob- 
vious that  it  could  have  tended  to  elevate,  because, 
being  above  the  reach  of  the  human  faculties,  it 
could  not  be  understood. 

There  is  left,  therefore,  only  the  method  which 
infinite  wisdom  adopted,  that  of  the  incarnation  of 
the  divine  in  the  human  form  ;  the  incarnation 
of  the  Son  of  God  ; — "  God  manifest  in  the  flesh." 

7. — And  this  is  a  method  of  manifestation,  which 
does  not  merely  excite  our  admiration  and  gratitude  ; 
but  which,  far  more  than  any  other  that  is  possible 
to  be  suggested,  satisfies  our  reason.  If  God  is  Love, 
the  manifestation  would  necessarily  be  in  that 
method  which  would  best  secure  the  results  at 
which  love  aims.  God,  therefore,  with  a  condescen- 
sion which  of  itself  intimates  his  true  nature,  took 
upon  himself  humanity  in  order  that  he  might  be 
comprehended  by  humanity;  and  that,  if  he  could 
not  be  measured  in  his  infinitude,  nor  be  understood 
in  the  truth  and  essentiality  of  his  nature  through 
the  incidents  of  knowledge  and  power  alone,  he 
might  be  understood  by  submitting  to  be  nailed  to 
the    Cross    in    that  which  was  and  is  the   essential 


g5  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

principle  of  his  life  ;  a  principle  which  gives  direction 
to  knowledge  and  power,  and  which  stamps  its  value 
on  infinitude. 

8. But  in  the  realization  of  this  great  event,  al- 
though through  the  teachings  of  types  and  prophe- 
cies they  had  long  looked  for  something  of  this  kind, 
men    seem  to  have  been  greatly  perplexed  in  one 
particular.      In    consequence    of    the     associations 
which  they  had  been  accustomed  to  attach  to  rank 
and  station,  they  expected  that  the  descending  God, 
whose  advent  the  earlier  ages  had  predicted,  would 
make  his  appearance  with  all  the  pomp  and  circum- 
stance at  least  which  belong  to  the  highest  human 
station.      They   looked    for   a   king   in    the    human 
and  historic  sense  of  the  term.     But  that  was  not 
God's   plan.     In    his   view    human    existence,  aside 
from  the  incidents  of  rank  and  station,  embodies  the 
evidence  of  the  highest  wisdom  and  goodness.     Man, 
who  was  made  in  the  image  of  God,  man  in  his  sim- 
ple humanity,  unadorned  with  the  incidents  which 
<nve  a  fictitious  splendor,  without  a  sceptre  and  with- 
out a  crown,  was  the  fitting  instrumentality  in  which 
God   was   to  make  himself  known.     And  therefore 
"  God  manifest  in  the  flesh,"  was  God  manifest  in 
man  • — man    low    in    worldly    station,  with  nothing 
calculated    to    arrest  attention  ;  but  poor,  untitled, 
friendless,  and  unknown.     He  chose  humanity  and 


DIVINE  MANIFESTA  TION.  87 

not  rank ;  the  thing  and  not  the  incidents  of  the 
thing  ;  humanity,  as  it  were,  in  its  nakedness ;  and 
thus  forever  gave  a  sanction  and  elevation  to  man  as 
man. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

Christ  as  the  Fulfilment  of  the  Law. 

I. — Keeping  in  mind  that  we  are  examining 
things,  or  at  least  attempting  to  do  so,  in  their  prin- 
ciples or  philosophical  bases,  we  proceed  now  to  an- 
other subject.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that 
the  thought  of  the  Christian  world  has  always  been 
directed  with  peculiar  earnestness  to  the  various 
events  which  constitute  the  life  and  death  of  Jesus 
Christ.  His  death,  as  well  as  the  antecedent  events 
of  his  personal  history,  has  a  significancy  which  will 
not  be  likely  to  be  exhausted  while  there  are  souls 
to  be  saved.  The  life  of  Christ,  including  its  clos- 
ing scenes,  is  often  spoken  of  and  regarded  as  a  "  ful- 
filment of  the  law."  Christ  himself  foreseeing  the 
probable  termination  of  his  life  and  its  relation  as  a 
whole  to  all  antecedent  facts  and  events,  refers  to 
the  subject,  Matt.  5  :  17,  18 — "  Think  not  that  I  am 
come  to  destroy  the  law  or  the  prophets.  I  am  not 
come  to  destroy  but  to  fulfil.  For  verily  I  say 
unto  you,  till  heaven  and  earth  pass,  one  jot  or  one 


CHRIST  AS  FULFILMENT  OF  THE  LA  IF.         go 

tittle  shall  in  no  wise  pass  from  the  law  till  all  be 
fulfilled."  In  a  passage  of  the  prophet  Isaiah,  ch. 
42:  21,  which  is  generally  understood  to  apply  to 
Christ,  it  is  said  "  he  will  magnify  the  law  and  make 
it  honorable."  It  is  often  said  that  we  are  to  look 
for  the  fulfilment  of  the  law  in  the  death  of  Christ 
on  the  Cross.  And  yet,  when  brought  to  the  test 
of  a  philosophical  examination,  the  death  of  Christ 
considered  in  itself  and  separate  from  that  which  is 
the  basis  or  foundation  of  it,  might  justly  be  regard- 
ed as  coming  short  of  such  fulfilment.  The  death 
of  Christ  in  its  physical  aspects  was  much  like  any 
other  death  ;  the  experience  of  physical  disorgani- 
zation and  suffering, — probably  very  great  suffering, 
— resulting  in  the  separation  of  the  body  and  the 
spirit.  Nevertheless,  it  is  in  the  death  of  Christ 
that  we  find  the  key  to  his  character ;  that  which 
interprets  the  meaning  of  his  antecedent  acts  ;  that 
which  consolidates  and  perfects  his  life  ;  that  which 
makes  him  in  a  true  sense,  when  we  get  at  that 
which  underlies  his  death,  the  world's  Saviour. 

2. — In  speaking  of  Christ,  in  the  events  and  inci- 
dents of  his  life  and  death  as  the  fulfilment  of  the 
law,  it  is  necessary  to  understand  what  meaning  and 
what  limitations  we  shall  attach  to  Law  itself.  And 
here  we  arc  met  by  the  fact  that  there  are  a  great 
multitude  of  laws   in  the   universe.     Go  where   we 


g0  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

will,  we  meet  with  this  great  regulative  influence. 
There  is  nothing  high  enough  or  low  enough,  no 
boundaries  of  time  or  space,  which  are  beyond  the 
cognizance  and  the  authority  of  Law.  The  philo- 
sophic interpreters  of  their  own  and  the  world's 
thought  on  this  subject,  Cicero,  Grotius,  Vattel, 
Hooker,  Montesquieu,  and  others,  agree  in  the 
great  doctrine  of  the  universality  of  Law.  And  what 
is  also  of  great  importance,  there  are  different  kinds 
of  law ;  laws  which  are  mental  and  moral  as  well  as 
physical  ;  laws  which  give  stability  to  thought  and 
guidance  to  virtue,  as  well  as  those  more  obvious 
laws  which  sustain  and  develop  material  beauty  and 
strength. 

3. — The  law  which  Jesus  fulfilled,  coming  under 
the  general  class  of  mental  or  spiritual,  is  the  law 
fundamental  to  all  others ;  the  Primal  law,  because 
it  stands  first  in  time  as  well  as  first  in  importance ; 
the  law,  without  which  God  would  cease  to  be  God  ; 
that  great  law  of  which  we  have  spoken  in  a  former 
chapter,  which  binds  the  higher  to  the  lower,  the 
stronger  to  the  weaker,  and  we  may  add,  the  good 
to  the  evil,  in  the  exercise  of  all  the  possibilities  of 
benevolence,  which  are  involved  in  the  fact  of  a 
higher  position  and  a  greater  wealth  of  resources. 
In  comparison  with  this  law  which  is  known  in  the 
Scriptures  as  the   law  of  Love,  all  other  laws  sink 


CHRIST  AS  FULFILMENT  OF  THE  LA  W.  9 1 

into  insignificance.  It  is  the  basis  Law  of  the  uni- 
verse ;  and  Christ  came  not  merely  to  announce  it 
as  a  principle  but  to  fulfil  it  as  a  fact,  in  order  that 
men  seeing  with  their  own  eyes  that  Love  is  ready 
to  pour  out  its  heart-blood  for  the  good  of  others, 
might  understand  and  know,  as  they  otherwise 
could  not  do,  the  moral  basis  on  which  the  universe 
stands. 

4. — The  law  of  love  when  carried  out  to  its  ap- 
propriate issues,  constitutes  as  we  have  already  had 
occasion  to  show,  the  central  life-principle  of  God 
himself.  Love  is  life  and  wherever  it  exists,  wheth- 
er in  the  Infinite  or  the  finite,  it  can  always  be  said, 
to  the  full  extent  of  that  existence  and  with  a  ful- 
ness and  truth  which  the  world  but  imperfectly  un- 
derstands, that  God  is  there.  And  Christ  therefore, 
in  taking  upon  himself  humanity  and  in  fulfilling 
the  law  in  this  lower  sphere,  may  be  said  to  have 
brought  God  down  to  earth.  In  being  lifted  upon 
the  Cross  and  nailed  there  in  the  sight  of  the  world, 
and  yet  in  his  agony  uttering  that  sublime  prayer, 
"  Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what  they 
do,"  he  revealed  the  truth  and  greatness  of  God's 
life  in  his  own  dying  but  immortal  life;  and  open- 
ing the  way  and  the  hope  of  salvation,  plucked  hu- 
manity from  its  sorrows  and  its  ruins,  and  gave  ever- 
lasting life  to  men. 


92 


ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 


5. — And  here,  speaking  as  we  now  do,  of  the 
great  divine  law,  that  law  of  Love  which  is  the  basis 
of  all  things  that  exist,  it  is  necessary  to  keep  in 
mind  the  discriminations  and  relations  of  ideas,  and 
to  separate  things  which  are  apt  to  be  confounded. 
Law  and  Life,  which  latter  is  only  another  name  for 
Love,  are  inseparable  rather  than  identical.  Law 
when  rightly  estimated,  is  the  eternal  announcement 
indicating  the  constitutive  form  and  the  mode  of  ac- 
tion ;  Love,  inseparably  connected  but  not  identical, 
is  the  correspondent  realization  which  operates 
within  the  truths  and  harmonies  of  law.  Law,  stand- 
ing as  the  interpreter  and  the  voice  of  the  universe, 
is  the  requisition  ;  Love  is  the  experience  and  the 
fulfilment  of  that  which  is  required.  In  the  natural 
or  logical  order,  law  is  the  antecedent  ;  but  being  an 
antecedence  of  ideas  and  not  of  life,  of  regulative 
form  rather  than  of  positive  and  affirmative  existence, 
it  is  necessary  that  Love,  which  is  the  power  that 
gives  it  vitality,  should  come  and  convert  it  into  a 
practical  principle  which  renovates  and  perfects  all 
things. 

6. — And  now  it  seems  to  me  to  be  philosophically 
true,  in  other  words  a  doctrine  of  the  Absolute  Re- 
ligion, that  the  Law,  though  eternal  as  God  and  un- 
changeable as  God,  and  speaking  with  a  divine  and 
universal  voice,  cannot  save  us,  without  that  Christ- 


CHRIST  AS  FULFILMENT  OF  THE  LA  W.         93 

life  or  Lovc-lifc,  which  the  Law  requires,  and  which 
is  the  Law's  fulfilment.  To  recognize  the  law,  which 
is  an  intellectual  act,  is  important  ;  to  feel  the  just- 
ness of  its  requisitions  in  the  conscience  is  important 
also  as  a  preliminary  preparation  ;  but  to  stop  in  the 
recognition  and  the  conscientious  conviction,  with- 
out the  possession  of  the  living  principle  which  it 
requires,  is  necessarily  to  die.  And  Christ,  there- 
fore, who  embodied  this  living  principle  and  who  in 
his  essential  nature  is  and  ever  will  be  Love,  is  the 
realization  or  fulfilment  of  the  Law. 

On  these  principles  man  cannot  be  saved,  if  sal- 
vation is  an  inward  life,  by  a  mere  command,  by  a 
mere  authoritative  declaration.  Salvation,  which  is 
the  kingdom  of  God  within  us,  does  not  come  in 
that  way.  The  destiny  of  man,  a  destiny  which  will 
always  be  fulfilled  if  it  is  not  prevented  by  his  own 
personal  opposition,  is  to  enter  into  everlasting  life 
by  becoming  a  partaker  of  that  life. 

7. — Undoubtedly  there  are  many  things  mistaken 
for  life  which  are  not  life.  Repentance  is  not  life 
It  implies  a  conviction  for  sin,  but  if  it  stops  there 
it  is  not  life.  Forgiveness  to  the  extent  of  entire 
pardon  for  all  our  past  sins  is  not  necessarily  to  be 
regarded  as  life.  It  implies  an  exemption  from  the 
suffering  which  was  originally  due  to  the  sins  which 
are  blotted  out ;  but  it  is  not  necessarily  a  principle 


94  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

of  life.  Happiness  may  be  expected  to  be  a  result 
of  life,  an  incident  which  is  naturally  attendant  upon 
it,  but  it  is  difficult,  on  any  analysis  which  may  be 
made  of  it,  to  affirm  that,  in  itself  considered,  it  is 
the  living  and  life-giving  principle  of  the  soul.  We 
enter  into  life,  and  the  principle  of  life  becomes  the 
soul's  new  birth  when  in  the  language  of  Scripture 
we  die  upon  the  Cross  ;  in  other  words,  when  by 
means  of  inward  crucifixion  we  die  to  self  in  all 
cases  where  self-hood  becomes  selfishness  ;  and  when 
we  begin  to  live  for  the  good  of  others,  not  only  the 
good  of  all  mankind  but  of  all  existences.  In  other 
words  using  the  terms  in  the  sense  in  which  God 
may  be  supposed  to  understand  them,  we  live  when 
we  love.  Love  is  life.  And  anything  within  us 
which  is  at  variance  with  love  is,  to  that  extent,  the 
absence  and  the  negation  of  life. 

8. — In  Christ  this  life  was  completed.  In  Him 
the  living  and  life-giving  principle  of  his  being,  that 
which  constituted  Him  the  Son  of  God,  was  holy  love. 
So  that  in  Him  the  law  of  the  universe,  that  law 
which  requires  us  to  love  God  and  in  loving  Him  to 
love  all  that  He  loves,  was  fulfilled. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

The  Second  or  New  Birth. 

I. — The  doctrine  of  the  regeneration,  otherwise 
known  as  the  doctrine  of  the  New  or  Second  Birth, 
is  clearly  an  announcement  of  the  Scriptures  ;  and 
though  especially  exposed  to  doubt  and  cavil  is  not 
without  the  acceptance  and  supports  of  observation 
and  philosophical  analysis.     It  is  the  language   of 
the  great  Teacher  ;  "  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  thee, 
except  a  man  be  born  again,  he  cannot  see  the  king- 
dom of  God."— John  3:3.     "  Therefore,  if  any  man 
be  in  Christ,"  says  the  Apostle  Paul,  "he  is  a  new 
creature."     Looking  at  the  subject  analytically  and 
philosophically  and  as   a  part  of  the  Absolute  Reli- 
gion, the  fact  of  a   New  or   Second  Birth  admitting 
the  fact  or  existence  of  such  a  birth,  necessarily  im- 
plies the   existence  of  an   antecedent   birth,   which 
may  properly  be  spoken  of  in  the  remarks  which  we 
now  propose  to  offer  on  the  First  birth.     And  this 
First  Birth  is  to  be  understood  as  identical  with  the 
natural  birth  or  the  Adamic  birth  as  theologians  fre- 


q5  absolute  religion. 

quently  name  it  and    which    the    Scriptures   some- 
times speak  of  as  the  birth  of  "  the  flesh." 

2.— And  this  birth  or  first  form  of  life  is  naturally 
the  first  object  of  our  attention.  As  the  Infinite  or 
Absolute  of  Existence  which  is  the  same  as  God  or 
Creator,  is  the  beginning  or  source  of  things,  and  as 
there  is  nothing  which  does  not  come  from  that  In- 
finite source,  therefore  it  follows  that  the  first  or 
natural  birth  of  man  is  and  must  be  from  the  Infi- 
nite to  the  finite.  But  the  finite  from  the  moment 
of  its  birth  out  of  the  Infinite,  being  from  that  time 
a  distinct  personality,  is  itself  and  not  another ;  is 
the  personal  and  responsible  creature  and  not  the 
Creator ;  has  its  own  recognized  and  definite  sphere 
of  existence  in  distinction  from  that  of  other  created 
beings ;  an  existence  which  is  not  only  discriminated 
from  that  of  other  beings  but  is  really  and  con- 
sciously its  own.  The  statement  itself,  too  plain  to 
need  the  refinements  of  argument,  may  justly  be  re- 
garded as  carrying  its  own  evidence. 

And  this  is  not  all.  From  the  moment  that  cre- 
ated man  first  knows  himself  as  an  existence  in  the. 
finite  and  as  a  distinct  personality,  it  is  obviously 
and  necessarily  a  law  of  his  being  that  he  seeks  and 
finds  his  centre  in  himself.  As  at  first  he  knows 
himself  and  only  himself,  he  certainly  could  not  be 
expected  in  the  beginning  of  his  existence  and  with 


THE  SECOND,  OR  NEW  BIRTH. 


97 


a  knowledge  limited  to  himself  to  seek  and  find  a 
centre  out  of  himself.  And  accordingly  it  is  true  in 
philosophy  and  is  confirmed  by  observation,  that 
turning  inwardly  and  acting  from  his  own  centre  he 
thinks  for  himself,  feels  for  himself,  wills  for  himself, 
and  primarily  and  in  the  first  instance  draws  all  his 
hope  from  himself.  He  cannot  properly  be  said  to 
be  self-made;  but  being  made  he  cannot  in  the  first 
instance  be  otherwise  than  self-centred.  And  hence 
it  is  said  in  the  Scriptures,  and  in  reference  to  the 
limitations  that  necessarily  attend  him,  that  the  first- 
man  is  born  oi  the  earth,  earthy :  in  other  words, 
with  the  nature  and  limitations  which  are  necessarily 
attendant  on  created  existences.  And  again,  in  the 
words  of  Christ  himself,  "  that  which  is  born  of  the 
flesh  is  flesh."  As  much  as  to  say,  that  the  finite  is 
born  into  what  it  is,  namely  its  own  restricted  and 
imperfect  nature.  This  is  the  first  birth,  the  first 
form  of  life ;  and  it  is  not  easy  to  see  how  it  could 
be  otherwise  than  it  is. 

3. — It  is  not  surprising  therefore,  that  Christ  in 
the  conversation  with  Nicodcmus,  to  which  we  have 
referred,  spoke  not  only  of  the  first  or  "  flesh"  birth, 
but  also  in  the  same  sentence  of  a  second  or  spirit 
birth.  "  That  which  is  born  of  the  flesh,  is  flesh  ; 
and  that  which  is  born  of  the  Spirit  is  spirit."  And 
then  he  added,  "  marvel  not  that  I  said  unto  you, 
5 


9 3  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

ye  must  be  born  again"  Expressions  which  if  closely 
examined  imply  not  only  the  fact  but  a  moral  ne- 
cessity for  it.  And  now,  having  stated  what  phi- 
losophy affirms  in  relation  to  the  first  birth,  the 
question  comes  up,  what  is  the  moral  necessity  or 
philosophy  of  the  second  birth.  Stated  in  a  general 
way,  the  second  birth  is  a  birth  back  from  the  finite 
to  the  Infinite  ;  from  the  life  of  the  creature  to  the 
life  of  the  Creator ;  a  birth  which  is  both  based  upon 
the  personality  of  the  first  birth  as  its  antecedent 
condition,  and  which  takes  place  without  the  loss 
of  such  personality.  In  the  first  birth  God  may  be 
said  to  make  or  constitute  the  finite,  giving  it  the 
freedom  and  independence  of  a  personal  existence ; 
and  yet  without  spiritually  incarnating  Himself  in  it 
as  an  indwelling  principle  of  that  life.  This  last 
could  not  be  done  in  consequence  of  the  inviolabil- 
ity of  its  freedom,  without  a  consenting  action  on 
the  part  of  the  creature.  In  the  second  birth,  the 
finite  in  the  exercise  of  its  moral  freedom,  which  is 
an  essential  element  in  its  personality,  has  accepted 
God  in  the  central  intimacy  of  its  nature  as  its  liv- 
ing and  governing  principle.  So  that  the  human  or 
"  earthy,"  as  the  Scriptures  call  it,  without  ceasing 
to  be  human  or  earthy,  but  by  renouncing  its  own 
centre  as  the  source  of  life,  and  taking  God  as  its 
centre,  does    by  its  own  choice  and  in  a  true  and 


THE  SECOND,  OR  NEW  BIRTH.  gg 

hisrh  sense  become  divine.  And  thus  God  himself, 
in  the  case  of  all  those,  who  by  being  born  with  the 
second  birth  are  born  in  the  image  of  the  "  Elder 
Brother,"  who  stands  before  us  as  the  true  pattern 
and  illustration  of  the  new  inward  life,  may  be  said 
to  the  extent  in  which  they  bear  that  image,  to  be 
truly  made  manifest  in  the  flesh. 

Such  was  God's  plan  from  the  beginning ;  such 
the  thought  of  Infinite  Wisdom.  It  never  could  have 
been  the  intention  of  God,  who  is  essential  goodness, 
in  establishing  the  finite  personality  to  separate  it 
permanently  from  the  infinite  or  universal  personal- 
ity, and  thus  raise  up  an  endless  antagonism  to  him- 
self. So  that  his  object,  and  in  the  light  of  the  Ab- 
solute Religion,  it  is  the  only  course  He  can  take, 
is  to  establish  man  first  in  the  limited  personal  life 
of  the  first  birth,  and  then,  by  means  of  the  great  facts 
involved  in  the  second  birth,  and  in  harmony  with 
man's  own  personal  recognitions  and  acceptance,  to 
make  him  one  with  the  universal  or  divine  personal 
life. 

4. — So  that  the  doctrine  of  the  second  birth, 
which  man  in  his  first  or  Adamic  life  does  not  easily 
understand,  and  indeed  according  to  the  apostle 
Paul  docs  not  understand  at  all  in  the  true  sense,  is 
no  fiction,  no  mistake  ;  but  on  the  contrary  is  a  great 
truth  in  philosophy,  and  a  great  realization  in  expe- 


100  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

rience.  But  the  question  may  perhaps  be  asked, 
whether  there  is  really  so  much  difference  between 
the  two  forms  of  life  as  to  justify  the  application  of 
distinctive  terms  ;  and  whether  the  second  form  of 
life  is  anything  more  or  otherwise  than  a  progression 
and  very  high  degree  of  the  first  or  natural  life.  In 
answering  this  question,  which  will  be  likely  to  arise 
in  some  minds,  we  remark  that  the  great  fact  of 
personality  in  both  cases  is  the  same ;  so  that  the 
same  person  is  the  subject  of  both  forms  of  experi- 
ence without  prejudice  to  his  individualism  ;  and  if 
he  were  at  any  time  to  reach 'spiritually  the  position 
of  an  angel,  it  would  not  at'  all  perplex  the  matter 
of  his  personal  identity.  And  furthermore,  it  may 
be  admitted,  and  is  undoubtedly  true,  that  there  is 
a  foundation  for  the  Doctrine  of  progression  ;  but 
the  doctrine  of  progression  implies,  I  suppose,  that 
there  is  an  end  toward  which  we  progress  ;  an  ob- 
ject which  the  soul  is  consciously  in  pursuit  of. 
And  if  we  have  a  right  understanding  of  the  matter, 
the  end  or  object  may  be,  and  in  fact  must  be,  dis- 
tinguished from  the  successive  and  progressive  steps 
which  are  prerequisite  to-  it.  There  are  many  things 
in  these  successive  steps,  which  are  called  and  which 
may  justly  be  regarded  as  facts  of  religious  experi- 
ence, and  which  in  consequence  of  the  real  interest 
and  value  attaching  to  them,  are  sometimes  errone- 


THE  SECOND,  OR  NEW  BIRTH.  I0I 

ously  mistaken  for  the  second  Birth  in  the  true  and 
higher  sense  of  the  phrase  ;  but  in  point  of  fact  they 
are  merely  steps  or  incidents  in  the  way  and  not  the 
end  or  termination  of  the  way.  A  soul  new-born  is 
not  a  process,  but  a  thing  done  ;  not  a  doing  or  being 
done,  but  a  fact  accomplished,  a  definite  result  and 
definitely  and  consciously  realized  ;  and  one  it  may 
be  added,  in  which  God  and  angels  take  an  interest 
and  in  which  all  heaven  rejoices. 

5. — And  in  my  apprehension,  whatever  may  be 
true  of  progression  either  before  or  after  the  second 
birth,  and  whatever  may  be  true  of  continued  and 
unbroken  personality,  there  is  a  line  of  distinction 
between  the  first  and  second  form  of  life,  between 
the  old  Adamic  life  and  the  new  Christ  life,  consid- 
ered simply  as  forms  of  life,  which  is  not  only 
marked  and  clear,  but  in  point  of  fact  the  two  things 
are  so  distinct,  the  one  never  going  beyond  the 
finite,  and  the  other  bound  up  in  the  golden  links  of 
the  Infinite,  that  they  are  incommensurable  with 
each  other,  and  in  the  essence  of  their  nature  forever 
stand  apart.  But  this  is  a  matter  of  so  much  im- 
portance that  I  propose  to  occupy  another  chapter 
with  a  contrasted  view  in  some  particulars  of  the 
two  forms  of  life,  in  the  hope  to  vindicate  and  make 
clear  these  positions. 


CHAPTER   X. 

Relation  of  the  First  to  tiie  Second  Birth, 

I. — It  might  be  supposed  from  what  has  been 
said  in  the  preceding  chapter,  that  the  first  form  of 
life,  to  which  so  large  a  portion  of  theological  atten- 
tion has  from  time  to  time  been  directed,  is  either 
in  its  nature  essentially  evil,  or  at  least  must  be  re 
garded  as  of  no  practical  position  and  value  in  the 
development  of  man's  spiritual  history.  Such  a 
view  in  either  of  the  aspects  which  have  been  inti- 
mated, would  be  a  great  mistake.  The  argument 
on  one  of  the  points  is  clear.  It  cannot  be  said  on 
any  just  philosophical  grounds  that  God  creates  sin. 
The  eternal  truth  rejects  any  such  affirmation.  And 
therefore  man's  first  birth,  at  the  moment  of  its  ori- 
gin, has  and  must  have  the  character  of  innocency. 
But  this  is  not  the  whole  statement  in  the  case. 
Standing  alone  in  the  relative  incompleteness  of  its 
incipient  condition,  but  naturally  preferring,  in  the 
consciousness  of  its  freedom  and  power  to  make  its 
own  way  and  to  do  its  own  acts  in   the  universe  of 


RELATION  OF  FIRST  TO  SECOND  BIRTH.      103 

things,  it  necessarily  finds  itself  at  a  very  early  pe- 
riod, and  perhaps  in  its  very  first  acts,  exposed  to 
the  greatest  hazards.  Its  innocence  is  no  certain 
pledge  of  its  security.  Its  innocence  involving  the 
fact  of  its  freedom  becomes  the  natural,  perhaps  the 
inevitable  precursor  of  its  sin. 

2. — The  view  of  the  Scriptures  on  this  subject  is 
supposed  to  be  familiar  to  all.  The  Absolute  Reli- 
gion, or  religion  as  founded  on  philosophical  observa- 
tion and  analysis,  harmonizes  with  it.  And  in  the 
support  of  this  last  assertion,  which  carries  with  it 
consequences  which  involve  the  interests  of  human- 
ity, let  us  delay  a  little  and  examine  the  subject  in 
its  details. 

We  first  see  man  coming  from  the  creating  hand 
of  God.  He  stands  before  us  as  the  Adamic  man, 
erect,  self-centred  and  free.  No  child  of  Satan  ;  but 
a  child  of  the  living  God,  and  constituted  in  a  very 
important  sense  in  the  image  of  God.  And  it  is  the 
fact  that  he  is  thus  constituted,  being  as  really  ex- 
istent and  free  in  the  human  sphere  as  God  is  in  the 
infinite  or  divine  sphere,  which  makes  his  danger. 
He  stands  sublime  in  his  independence.  He  occu- 
pies an  eminence  above  all  other  created  things. 
His  joy  is  as  great  as  the  greatness  of  his  position. 
But  can  he  stand  alone  ?  That  is  the  question. 
With  all  the  independence  and  power  which  he  act- 


104  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

ually  possesses,  is  it  true  that  he  either  is  or  can  be 
morally  secure  amid  a  universe  of  existences  and  re- 
lations, no  rights  or  claims  of  which  are  ever  allowed 
to  be  violated? 

3. — It    is    unquestionable  that   man  knew   well 
both  the  fact  and  the  nature  of  the  power  and  the 
freedom. which  God   had  given  him.     God  had  not 
only  given  them  to  him ;  but  with  the  gift  had  given 
also,  without  which  they  would  have  been  valueless, 
the  consciousness  which  recognized  them  as  his  own. 
But  is  it  necessary  to  add  there  was  one  thing  which 
he   did   not  know?     He  had   no  adequate  compre- 
hension, and  in  consequence  of  the  necessary  limita- 
tion and  finiteness  of  his  powers  it  was  impossible 
that  he  should  have,  of  the  infinitude  of  obligations 
that  rested  upon  him.     And  still  less,  standing  firm- 
ly in  the  sphere  of  his  independence   and  trusting  in 
the  newborn  joy  of  his  own  strength  alone,  was  he 
able  to.  fulfil  these  obligations.     To  accept  the   aid 
which  the  divine  benevolence  offered  him  had  the 
appearance  of  giving  up  his  independence.     His  in- 
dependence seemed  to  be,  as  it  really  was,  the  glory 
of  his  nature.     To  part  with  it  even  in  the  smallest 
degree  and  under  any  circumstances,  was  striking  a 
blow    at    the    essence    of  his   life.     Blinded  by  the 
splendor  of  the  gifts   which   had  been  imparted   to 
him,  he  virtually  asked  God  who  had  made  him  in 


RELATION  OF  FIRST  TO  SECOND  BIRTH.      I05 

this  grand  incipient  completeness,  to  stand  aside  and 
let  him  alone. 

How  could  he  being  a  man  be  otherwise  than  he 
was  ;  or  how,  being  situated  as  he  was,  could  he  do 
otherwise  than  he  did?  The  law  which  required 
him  to  fulfil  every  duty, — a  law  as  limitless  in  its 
applications  as  the  infinitude  of  existing  facts  and 
relations, — was  upon  him  ;  and  it  could  not  be  oth- 
erwise. And  undertaking  in  his  ignorance  to  fulfil 
it  in  his  own  strength, — a  strength  which  was  not 
strong  enough  to  renounce  itself  under  such  circum- 
stances,— he  necessarily  failed  and  fell. 

4. — Such  are  the  essential  facts  which  present 
themselves  to  our  observation  as  we  theoretically 
and  practically  study  the  history  of  the  human  race ; 
and  which  are  more  or  less  clearly  revealed  in  the 
facts  and  incidents  of  the  biblical  narrative.  Man 
fell.  The  weight  of  his  own  glory  inseparable  from 
the  inviolability  of  his  personal  and  responsible  ex- 
istence, combined  as  it  was  with  the  position  in 
which  he  was  necessarily  placed,  bore  him  down. 
It  was  of  the  nature  of  a  moral  necessity ;  but  it 
was  not  without  the  signatures  of  divine  goodness 
and  wisdom.  His  fall  as  it  is  denominated,  great 
and  terrible  as  it  was,  carried  with  it  the  noblest 
testimony  which  could  possibly  be  given  of  the  high 
and  glorious  nature  of  the  gifts  which  had  been  im- 
5* 


I06  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

parted.  A  testimony  so  striking  and  decisive  that 
the  universe,  which  is  interested  in  all  that  pertains 
to  man  and  which  cannot  live  upon  doubts,  could 
not  afford  to  be  without  it.  It  was  necessary  in  or- 
der to  establish  a  basis  for  the  ever-growing  devel- 
opment and  harmonies  of  the  universe,  in  order  to 
build  the  pillars  of  the  future  in  eternal  strength, 
not  only  that  man  should  be  free,  but  that  he  should 
be  known  to  be  free.  The  fall  of  man  settles  it  for- 
ever, that  the  manhood  which  his  Creator  gave  him 
was  a  divine  reality  and  not  a  pretentious  sem- 
blance. 

5. — When  in  my  early  life  I  read  in  some  of  the 
old  Puritan  theologians  that  there  was  wisdom  and 
glory  in  the  fall  of  man  and  that  great  good  had  re- 
sulted from  it,  I  failed  to  see  the  truth  of  their  dec- 
larations. And  if  in  the  sense  of  my  comparative 
ignorance,  I  had  not  the  strength  entirely  to  reject 
their  statements,  I  certainly  had  not  the  ability  to 
comprehend  them.  I  reserved  them  as  I  have  done 
in  many  other  instances,  for  further  meditation. 
And  my  thought  to-day,  subject  to  the  corrections 
of  any  higher  wisdom,  is,  that  they  were  right  in  the 
substance  of  their  meaning,  though  imperfect  and 
liable  to  lead  to  error  in  their  expression  of  it.  The 
fall  of  man  was  and  is  a  good,  because  it  was  and  is 
the   only   testimony  which   can  settle,  beyond    the 


RELATION  OF  FIRST  TO  SECOND  BIRTH.     107 

reach  of  doubt  and  cavil,  the  question  of  the  com- 
pleteness of  his  moral  nature  in  the  matter  of  his 
moral  liberty. 

The  history  of  six  thousand  years  with  its  record 
of  deceptions  and  cruelties,  of  suspicions,  calumnies 
and  hatreds,  with  its  usurping  tyrannies  and  bloody 
wars,  and  not  without  the  bright  inheritance  of  vir- 
tuous purposes  and  noble  deeds,  leaves  no  room  to 
doubt,  that  man  in  the  greatness  of  his  nature  was 
created  with  the  capacity  to  discriminate  between 
right  and  wrong  and  to  do  either  good  or  evil.  But 
this  decisive  testimony  which  removes  all  doubt, 
could  not  have  been  reached  with  anything  short  of 
the  multitude  of  sad  and  guilty  facts  which  are  in- 
volved in  it. 

6. — We  pass  now  to  another  view.  It  can  be 
said  of  the  first  form  of  life  that  it  is  not  only  not 
evil  in  its  nature,  but  that  it  sustains  relations  and 
secures  results  of  the  greatest  importance.  Its 
greatness  and  glory,  with  all  its  admitted  liabilities 
to  error  and  transgression,  are  evident  from  this,  that 
without  the  first  birth  the  second  birth,  with  all  the 
hopes  and  honors  which  attach  to  it  would  have 
been  an  impossibility.  The  later  or  heavenly  birth, 
it  is  true,  is  born  of  heavenly  influences  flowing 
down  to  it  from  heavenly  sources  and  elevating  the 
soul  to  its  new  position;  but  these  influences  gain 


IOS  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

no  admittance  and  of  course  exert  no  power  until 
the  soul,  with  the  key  of  its  inalienable  freedom, 
opens  the  door  for  their  entrance  and  accepts  them 
as  its  own.  God  undoubtedly  is  to  be  regarded  as 
a  party  in  this  great  work ;  he  cannot  be  separated 
from  the  divine  influences  which  have  been  men- 
tioned ;  and  without  Him  nothing  is  done  effectual- 
ly. But  there  are  moral  as  well  as  physical  impossi- 
bilities ;  and  God  cannot  do  that  which  is  impossi- 
ble to  be  done.  It  is  impossible  for  God  to  bestow 
upon  men  the  attributes  of  freedom  and  power  in 
sincerity,  and  yet  at  the  same  time  to  destroy,  or  to 
interfere  with  and  perplex  their  appropriate  position 
and  action.  If  there  is  anything  which  may  be  re- 
garded as  fully  settled,  either  in  sound  philosophy 
or  in  any  generally  accepted  theology,  it  is  the  posi- 
tion, that  the  gift  of  moral  freedom  implies  and  ne- 
cessitates the  impossibility  of  its  violation.  So  that 
the  first  or  oldest  birth,  whether  regarded  as  pure 
and  innocent  at  the  period  of  its  origin,  or  with 
some  inherent  taint  of  evil  as  some  suppose,  or 
what  seems  to  be  and  what  we  think  must  be  the 
truth  in  the  case,  with  innocence  attended  with  a 
liability  to  evil,  by  an  arrangement  which,  growing 
out  of  the  nature  of  things,  could  not  be  otherwise 
than  it  is,  places  the  crown  as  the  result  of  its  histo- 
ry and  experience  upon  the  head  and  heart  of  the 


RELATION  OF  FIRST  TO  SECOND  BIRTH.     109 

second  birth.  And  in  this  sense  at  least,  Adam,  in 
the  line  and  the  destinies  of  humanity,  becomes  as 
the  Scriptures  represent  him,  the  progenitor  of 
Christ ;  Adam  falls  that  Christ  may  rise  ;  the  Ad- 
amic  man  perishes  that  the  Christ  or  Christian  man, 
made  strong  by  the  element  of  a  new  life  may  come 
and  take  his  place  and  may  live  forever. 

7. — But  proceeding  a  step  further,  we  next  in- 
quire what  is  the  true  and  interior  nature  of  this 
remarkable  work.  There  is  a  remark  of  St.  Augus- 
tine which  indicates  what  this  nature  is,  " A  mores 
duo  ducts  civitates  fecerunt."  Two  loves  have  made 
two  cities ;  the  one  Babylon,  the  other  Jerusalem  ;  the 
one  a  city  of  discord  and  unrighteousness,  the  other 
a  city  of  harmony  and  rectitude.  Looking  at  the 
matter  philosophically,  it  is  not  necessary  to  deny 
that  these  two  loves  are  the  same  in  their  individu- 
al nature ;  and  are  only  discriminated  and  separated 
by  the  diversity  in  their  applications  and  objects. 
If  man  had  not  been  created  with  the  love  of  him- 
self, would  he  have  possessed  the  measurement,  by 
which  he  was  required  to  estimate  his  love  to  his 
neighbor?  We  read  repeatedly  in  the  writings  of 
Paul,  "thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself." 
And  in  other  places,  in  expressions  of  still  broader 
and  higher  import,  "  thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy 
God  with  all   thy  heart,  and  thy  neighbor   as  thy- 


I  i  o  ABSOL  UTE  RELIGION. 

self;  "  identifying  the  love  of  God,  so  far  as  its  na- 
ture is  concerned,  with  the  love  of  our  neighbor, 
and  in  that  way  as  it  seems  to  me,  identifying  the 
love  of  our  Maker,  in  respect  to  its  nature  at  least, 
with  the  love  of  man. 

It  is  true  that  the  love  of  God  is  greatly  higher 
than  that  of  our  neighbor,  because  while  the  love 
of  our  neighbor  extends  to  and  embraces  humanity, 
the  love  of  God  reaching  far  above  and  far  below, 
includes  the  love  of  all  existences.  As  President 
Edwards  in  one  of  the  most  remarkable  of  his  works 
expresses  it,  it  is  the  "  love  of  being  in  general ;  "  in 
other  words,  love  of  everything  which  exists  and  is 
susceptible  of  being  loved.  And  yet  it  seems  to  us 
it  cannot  well  be  doubted,  in  the  light  of  a  candid 
and  careful  analysis,  that  the  love  of  God  is  the 
same  in  its  essential  nature  with  the  love  of  oui 
neighbor,  which  in  its  kind  or  nature  is  the  same 
with  that  of  ourselves.  So  that  the  love  of  God, 
looking  at  the  matter  either  in  the  light  of  the 
Scriptures  or  of  the  highest  reason,  is  the  expansion 
of  the  love  of  ourselves,  which  in  the  lower  or  com- 
parative sense  is  the  infinitely  small,  to  what  in  the 
higher  or  absolute  sense  is  the  infinitely  great ;  in 
other  words,  from  a  sphere  of  action  which  is  meas- 
ured by  individualism,  to  a  sphere  of  action  whose 
universality  places  it  beyond  the  possibility  of  meas- 


RELA  TION  OF  FIRST  TO  SECOND  BIR  Til.     \  \  i 

urement.  And  this  statement,  in  harmony  with 
what  was  intimated  in  a  former  passage,  involves 
the  comparative  measurement  of  the  first  and  sec- 
ond birth,  and  makes  them,  in  the  matter  of  extent 
or  degree,  incommensurable. 

8. — Upon  this  subject,  the  greatness  of  the  sec- 
ond Birth,  we  have  no  language  which   can  well  ex- 
press our  feelings.     Perhaps  we  ought  to  say  again, 
and  still  more  explicitly,  that  we  understand  by  the 
second    Birth    something   more   than    the  ordinary 
forms,  valuable  as  they  are,  of  transitional  religious 
experience.     A  man  may  be  greatly  exercised  in  re- 
ligious experiences,  and  indeed  it  is  often  the  case, 
without  his  being  able  to  say  in  the  higher  and  true 
sense  that  he  is  born  of  God.     The  second  birth  is 
the  soul  found  in  the   image   of  God,  not  merely  in 
the  matter  of  moral  freedom  but  of  universal  love  ; 
the   soul  expanded   from   the   consideration  of  self 
alone  to  the  regard  and  love  of  every  other  being  ; 
the  out-growth  and  the  divine  consummation  of  the 
souPs  antecedent  and  preparatory  history.     It  gains 
a  position  in  which,  harmonizing  with  God,  God  be- 
comes its  teacher  ;  and  in  which,  going  hand  in  hand 
with  its  great  Creator,  it  henceforth  marches  onward 
forever  to  learn,  forever  to  love,  and   forever  to  en- 
joy. 

9. — But    the    question    still  remains,  where  docs 


!  !  2  A  B  SOL  UTE  RELIGION. 

this  heavenly  love  come  from,  and  under  what  con- 
ditions does  it  come.  We  answer,  it  is  the  gift  of 
God  ;  perhaps  it  would  be  better  to  say,  it  is  the  in- 
flowing of  God.  The  latter  term  implies  that  it 
comes  by  the  necessities  of  law ;  the  former,  that  it 
depends  on  the  uncontrolled  decisions  of  volition. 
If  we  are  right  in  the  views  we  entertain,  it  is  a  part 
of  God's  nature,  without  which  he  would  be  some- 
thing less  than  God,  to  flow  out  or  communicate 
himself,  in  the  attributes  of  truth  and  good,  to  all  be- 
ings that  are  capable  of  receiving  and  are  willing  to 
receive.  He  chooses  to  do  this,  because  his  nature 
never  allows  him  to  choose  otherwise ;  and  thus 
the  choice  which,  without  the  nature,  would  be 
giving,  being  sustained  and  sanctified  by  the  nature, 
becomes  an  in-flowing.  If  God  is  Love,  which  fhe 
Scriptures  as  well  as  philosophy  affirm  him  to  be, 
there  can  be  no  difficulty  here. 

But  there  is  still  something  remaining.  This 
great  and  desirable  result,  which  has  the  heart  of  the 
Infinite  in  its  favor,  depends  nevertheless  upon 
man  ;  at  least  in  this  particular,  that  this  in-flowing 
from  the  divine  heights  can  never  reach  him,  can 
never  become  the  baptism  of  the  soul  and  the  souFs 
reeeneration,  without  his  own  consent.  It  is  when 
he  can  truly  say  "  not  my  will  but  thine  be  done," 
that  his  consent  is  fully  given.    God  could  not  make 


RE  LA  TION  OF  FIRST  TO  SECOND  BIRTH.      113 

him  in  the  true  greatness  of  his  nature,  and  did  not 
make  him,  without  giving  him  this  mighty  preroga- 
tive. 

10. — And  now,  let  us  look  a  moment  in  another 
direction  ;  and  what  do  we  see  ?  The  second  birth 
in  any  other  way,  or  on  any  other  conditions,  be- 
comes an  impossibility.  Is  it  possible  for  God  to 
raise  man  to  that  high  position,  with  the  opposition 
of  his  own  will  standing  against  it  ?  And  more  than 
this,  take  away  the  freedom  of  the  will,  which  is  the 
completing  or  consummating  element  in  man's  na- 
ture, and  there  is  nothing  to  be  raised.  It  is  true 
that  freedom  of  the-  will  does  not  constitute  the 
whole  of  man  ;  but  it  is  also  true  that  man  is  not 
and  cannot  be  constituted  as  man  without  it.  The 
new  birth,  which  implies  that  the  soul  is  not  and 
cannot  be  a  machine,  the  new-birth  which  is  in  the 
highest  sense  a  grand  moral,  spiritual  and  responsi- 
ble realization,  could  never  have  had  a  place  without 
the  antecedents  of  man's  first  birth  of  freedom  and 
personality.  The  statement  is  an  argument;  and 
the  argument  is  conviction.  -And  therefore  it  is  we 
say,  look  at  man  as  he  is,  and  call  him  man  or  devil, 
inasmuch  as  a  name  cannot  alter  the  fact  ;  and  it  is 
impossible  not  to  bow  with  reverence  in  the  pres- 
ence of  human  nature,  which,  with  all   its   liabilities 


ii4 


ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 


to  evil,  still  holds  in  its  hand  the  possibilities  of 
heavenly  and  eternal  life. 

II. — And  now,  taking  our  position  on  such 
grounds,  is  it  out  of  place  to  utter  a  few  words  in 
favor  of  our  common  humanity,  even  in  those  forms 
which  have  the  sad  aspect  of  degradation  and  sor- 
row ?  Is  there  one  so  low  that  he  wholly  loses  the 
dignity  of  his  nature,  and  lies  below  the  notice  of  a 
sympathizing  tear?  The  Adamic  man,  even  in  the 
degradation  of  his  fall,  holds  in  his  hand  the  key  of 
universal  good.  Go  with  me  to  yonder  prison,  which 
contains  within  its  iron  bars,  and  shuts  out  from  the 
light  of  day,  the  thief  and  the  drunkard,  the  robber 
and  the  murderer;  and  in  those  countenances  of  sor- 
row and  of  crime,  canst  thou  not  see  something 
which  speaks  to  thee  of  a  common  brotherhood, 
something  which  inspires  in  thy  saddened  bosom 
sentiments  of  forgiveness  and  hope  ?  I  speak  for 
myself,  but  I  am  confident,  that  I  find  in  the  emo- 
tions of  my  own  heart  the  common  thought  and 
feeling  of  our  common  humanity. 

And  if  these  sentiments  are  the  out-birth  of  a 
sound  philosophy  in  relation  to  our  initiative  or  Ad- 
amic humanity,  they  cannot  fail  to  inspire  feelings 
of  reverence  and  love  for  that  great  Book  in  which 
it  is  said,  "  He  maketh  his  sun  to  rise  on  the  evil 
and  on  the  good,  and  sendeth  rain  on  the  just  and 


RELATION  OF  FIRST  TO  SECOND  BIRTH     n$ 

on  the  unjust.11  And  where  we  read,  "  Father,  for- 
give them,  for  they  know  not  what  they  do."  And 
where  it  is  said  again,  "  Neither  do  I  condemn  thee ; 
go,  and  sin  no  more."  And  again,  "  This  day  thou 
shalt  be  with  me  in  Paradise." 


CHAPTER  XI. 

Relation  of  Moral  Evil  to  Freedom,  and  its  Remedy. 

I. —  It  is  implied  in  the  fact  of  forgiveness^to 
which  reference  was  made  at  the  close  of  the  last 
chapter,  in  connection  with  the  forgiving  and  loving 
principles  involved  in  the  mystery  of  the  Cross, 
that  there  is  something  which  needs  to  be  forgiven  ; 
in  other  words,  that  man  has  gone  astray  and  sin- 
ned. This  fact  brings  up  the. inquiry,  upon  which 
there  has  been  from  time  to  time  so  much  discus- 
sion, of  the  origin  of  moral  evil.  The  view  of  the 
Absolute  Religion,  which  is  also  the  doctrine  of  the 
Scriptures  when  properly  interpreted  and  under- 
stood, is  that  moral  evil  in  its  various  forms  and  de- 
grees is  necessarily  incidental  to  the  facts  which  are 
involved  in  the  constitution  of  man's  nature.  In 
other  words,  the  liability  to  sin  is  a  necessary  result 
of  the  great  faculties  and  capabilities,  which  are 
man's  inheritance. 

2. — It  is  the  Scriptural  statement  that  man  was 
created  in  the  "  image  of  God."     A  statement  which 


MORAL  EVIL.  uy 

is  entitled  on  grounds  of  observation  and  reason  to 
be  accepted  in  its  essential  meaning,  although  it  re- 
quires to  be  modified  in  its  import  by  the  considera- 
tion that  man  is  finite  and  the  Creator  infinite.  But 
with  this  modification  kept  in  view,  which  implies 
that  the  likeness  in  the  creation  exists  in  the  out- 
lines and  essential  nature  of  being,  rather  than  in 
the  amount  or  degree  of  being,  it  still  remains,  that 
man  was  created  in  the  divine  image,  in  the  first 
place,  perceptively ;  in  other  words,  in  the  posses- 
sion of  those  powers  which  are  employed  in  the  ac- 
quisition of  knowledge.  And  if  the  limitation,  to 
which  we  have  referred,  excludes  the  attribute  of 
omniscience,  it  accepts  both  the  possibility  and  the 
fact  of  such  a  degree  of  knowledge  as  is  appropri- 
ate to  a  finite  being.  Secondly,  man  was  created 
in  the  image  of  God  sentimentively ;  that  is  to  say, 
he  was  created  with  that  distinct  and  more  interior 
department  of  our  mental  nature  which  is  some- 
times appropriately  expressed  by  the  term  sensibili- 
ties ;  and  which,  in  being  the  sphere  of  the  senti- 
ments, originates  feeling  in  its  various  forms  of  emo- 
tions, desires  and  feelings  of  obligation,  in  distinc- 
tion from  mere  perceptive  acts.  And  thirdly,  he  was 
created  with  the  power  or  faculty  of  the  will;  that 
great  and  controlling  department  of  the  mind,  where 
we  are  to  look  for  the  foundations,  or  at  least  the 


l  1 5  ABSOL  UTE  RELIGION. 

necessary  conditions,  of  personality  and  accountabil- 
ity. In  all  these  important  respects  there  can  be  no 
hesitation  in  saying  that  man  was  created  in  the 
imasre  of  God.  And  as  a  resultant  of  these  attri- 
butes  of  being,  and  as  a  necessary  fulfilment  of  the 
statement  that  he  was  born  in  the  divine  image,  he 
was  created  self-centred ;  a  being  not  only  endued 
with  living  power,  but  created  in  the  possession  of 
absolute  moral  freedom  within  the  sphere  of  his 
personal  existence  and  activity. 

3. — So  that  if  we  rightly  conceive  of  the  princi- 
ples of  his  birth,  man  was  created  a  child  of  God, 
with  a  reality  of  freedom  and  of  personal  responsi- 
bility in  his  own  finite  sphere,  analogous  to  that  of 
God  himself  in  his  infinite  sphere.  The  attribute 
of  volitional  and  moral  freedom,  with  that  practical 
self-reliance  which  grows  out  of  it,  makes  the  self- 
centred  position  complete.  So  that  man,  being 
what  he  is  and  created  as  he  is,  is  necessarily  born  a 
self-hood  ;  and  that  self-hood,  claiming  on  the  ground 
of  moral  freedom  a  likeness  and  relationship  with 
the  self-hood  of  God,  is  not  more  a  necessary  condi- 
tion or  form  of  his  life,  than  it  is  the  foundation  of 
his  greatness  and  glory.  And  accordingly,  though 
as  man  he  is  an  out-birth  from  God  and  is  necessari- 
ly inferior  to  God,  he  stands  within  his  own  sphere 
of  life,  and  in  virtue  of  the  psychical  and  moral  gifts 


MORAL  EVIL.  I  ig 

which  have  been  imparted  to  him,  essentially  a  de- 
ific  being ;  and  is  truly  and  emphatically  born  in  the 
image  of  God  and  made  a  son  of  God.  And  that 
which,  more  than  anything  else,  although  none  of 
his  other  mental  attributes  could  be  dispensed  with, 
gives  him  this  high  place,  and  that  which  establishes 
him  as  one  born  in  the  image  of  God,  and  makes 
him  a  true  child  of  God,  is  his  inviolable  freedom. 

4. — In  being  an  out-birth  from  the  Infinite,  man 
is  not  on  that  account  infinite  himself,  but  on  the 
contrary  is  characterized,  and  necessarily  so,  by 
finiteness.  An  infinite  out-birth,  if  it  could  be  a 
thing  conceivable,  would  be  essentially  a  contradic- 
tion in  terms.  A  creation  or  out-birth,  which  could 
be  characterized  as  infinite,  would  not  be  an  out- 
birth,  but  an  identity.  So  that  man,  in  the  primal 
principles  and  facts  of  his  creation,  is  born  as  he  is 
and  was,  because  he  could  not  be  born  otherwise  ; 
made  in  the  image  of  God,  and  therefore  in  an  im- 
portant sense  deific,  but  not  infinite.  But  here 
comes  an  incident  of  his  history  which  is  worthy  of 
notice.  The  law  and  the  facts. of  his  being  are  such, 
that  while  they  constitute  the  necessity  and  the  glo- 
ry of  his  existence,  they  draw  the  lines  of  separation, 
and  place  him,  in  the  first  instance,  not  only  in  the 
isolation  of  self-hood,  but  for  a  time  at  least  in  prac- 
tical antagonism  with  everything  else.     He  stands 


I20  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

up  in  the  conscious  greatness  of  his  individualism, 
which  is  only  another  name  for  his  self-hood  ;  and 
in  the  power  and  in  the  just  pride  of  self-affirmation, 
his  first  utterance  is  necessarily  an  interrogation  of 
the  universe.  He  says,  I  am  a  man;  let  no  one 
touch  me  ;  let  no  one  violate  the  sphere  of  my  activ- 
ity; let  no  one  attempt  to  control  me.  That  proud 
voice  which  in  affirming  itself  and  ascertaining  its 
own  position,  interrogates  and  warns  all  others, 
sounds  through  all  heights  and  all  depths,  and  pro- 
claims the  birth  of  a  deific  son.  God  himself  stands 
aside,  as  it  were,  in  deep  reverence  and  love  of  his 
own  mighty  work ;  and  will  not,  and  in  fact  cannot, 
without  a  self-contradiction,  act  adversely  in  the 
violation,  in  any  degree  whatever,  of  that  divine  at- 
tribute of  freedom  which  He  has  given  never  to  be 
recalled. 

5. — But,  although  God  had  given  man  freedom, 
there  was  another  thing  which  he  did  not  and  could 
not  give.  He  did  not  and  could  not  give  him  the 
right  to  violate  the  position  and  the  rights  of  any 
other  being  which  exists,  whether  great  or  small. 
All  beings  have  their  position  and  rights  as  distinctly 
marked  and  as  clearly  inviolable  as  are  those  of  man 
So  that,  although  man  was  born  into  the  position  of 
self-hood  with  all  its  possibilities  and  responsibili- 
ties, yet  the  great   law   of  the   universe,  which  God 


MORAL  EVIL.  I2I 

himself  could  not  abrogate  or  alter,  requires  him  to 
exercise  that  self-hood  in  all  its  tendencies  and  acts, 
in  harmony  with  the  rights  and  the  highest  good 
of  all  others.  The  soul  in  its  self-hood,  with  the 
freedom  and  power  of  its  self-hood,  and  yet  without 
the  knowledge  which  might  enable  it  to  act  in  har- 
mony with  the  rights  and  claims  of  all  other  beings, 
is  the  soul  in  its  first  birth  ;  the  soul,  in  the  language 
sometimes  employed  by  theologians,  in  its  Adamic 
life.  And  it  is  here,  in  this  position  of  the  soul, 
great  and  wonderful  as  it  is,  that  we  find  the  possi- 
bility and  the  practical  beginnings  of  moral  evil.  It 
acts,  because  it  has  the  freedom  and  the  power  to 
act ;  and  is  determined  to  act,  because  it  is  justly  in 
love  with  its  freedom  and  power  ;  but  in  its  blindness 
it  is  constantly  doing  wrong,  because  in  breaking 
the  law  to  which  even  freedom  is  bound  to  submit, 
it  violates  the  harmonies  of  the  universe.  But  all 
these  sins  and  errors,  originating  in  blindness  of 
mind,  are  forgiven  and  blotted  out  in  the  principles 
and  experiences  of  the  Cross,  as  we  have  already 
explained  them.  And  the  soul,  prepared  by  what 
it  has  passed  through  and  impressed  with  a  new  and 
deeper  sense  of  the  divine  wisdom,  is  born  into  that 
higher  and  better  position  which  is  not  inappropri- 
ately called  the  second  birth. 

6. — We  can  perhaps  illustrate  these   views   and 


122  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

make  them  clearer  by  calling  to  mind  that  the  state 
of  things  which  we  have  just  now  described,  is  es- 
sentially, and  almost  precisely,  what  we  daily  see  in 
little  children.  Their  freedom,  without  which  in 
their  sad  stupidity,  they  would  be  but  little  better 
than  mere  blocks  of  stone  or  wood,  sparkles  in  their 
eyes,  sounds  in  their  voice,  and  is  a  living  activity 
in  their  hands  and  feet.  And  this  very  freedom, 
without  which  they  would  cease  to  be  true  children, 
constitutes  the  parents'  highest  joy.  The  parents 
look  upon  the  exuberance  of  their  bliss  in  their  run- 
nings to  and  fro,  and  in  their  thousand  experimental 
activities,  with  an  ecstasy  of  pleasure ;  regarding  it 
as  the  presage  of  the  reality  and  the  fruits  of  man- 
hood and  womanhood.  And  yet  the  first  thing 
they  do,  is  to  place  this  incipient  freedom,  which  is 
the  seed  of  moral  life  and  without  which  moral  life 
is  an  impossibility,  under  law.  They  tell  their  chil- 
dren not  to  do  this  thing  and  not  to  do  that  thing; 
and  the  child,  overrunning  with  gladness  in  the 
possession  of  his  personality,  seldom  fails  in  some  of 
the  particulars  which  are  placed  under  prohibition, 
to  go  contrary  to  the  orders  of  the  loving  parents. 
And  the  consequence  is,  that  they  not  only  go  astray, 
but  they  suffer  for  it ;  and  there  is  no  restoration  for 
them  and  no  happiness  for  them  until  they  are  will- 
ing to  place  themselves  under  parental  direction,  or 


MORAL  EVIL. 


123 


what  is  the  same  thing,  to  place   their  wills  under 
the  wills  of  their  parents. 

7. — This  analogous  illustration  helps  us  to  under- 
stand man's  position  in  relation  to  God.  The  child 
who  disobeys  suffers  ;  and  the  human  race  in  its  dis- 
obedience to  God  suffers  ;  but  the  love  of  the  parent 
comes  to  the  rescue  of  the  child  ;  and  so  the  love  of 
God,  incarnated  and  manifested  in  Christ,  comes  to 
the  rescue  of  the  race  ;  and  in  both  cases  promptly, 
sincerely,  and  so  far  as  the  possibilities  of  the  case 
will  allow,  effectually.  All  that  is  wanting  on  the 
part  of  man  is  those  dispositions,  including  the  pen- 
itent recognition  of  his  sin,  which  will  secure  obedi 
ence.  The  great  law  of  the  universe  which  requires 
a  regard  for  the  rights  and  happiness  of  all  possible 
existences,  is  an  imperative  one.  It  is  a  law  so  clear 
that  it  needs  no  proof  except  what  it  carries  in  itself 
in  the  fact  of  its  own  intuitional  affirmation.  And 
yet  it  is  a  law  which  cannot  by  any  possibility  be 
obeyed,  except  in  one  way ;  namely,  by  placing  the 
human  will  in  the  keeping  of  the  Divine  will.  And 
this,  it  cannot  well  be  doubted,  was  the  interior 
meaning  and  object  of  the  law  of  Paradise,  namely, 
to  adjust  permanently  the  relation  of  the  human  and 
the  Divine  will  in  order  to  man's  guidance  and  good. 

8. — But   the   question    may    suggest    itself   here 
whether  this  is  not  a  hard  case  for  man  ;  endowed 


I24  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

as  he  is  with  freedom,  and  yet  in  the  exercise  of 
that  freedom  without  which  he  would  cease  to  be  a 
man,  doomed  to  errors  which  bring  him  into  con- 
demnation and  suffering.  It  might  perhaps  be  re- 
garded so  if  this  were  the  termination  of  his  history, 
and  if  there  were  no  escape  from  a  position  so  un- 
looked  for  and  so  sad.  But  the  Fall,  as  it  is  theo- 
logically expressed,  or  that  series  of  events  in  which 
freedom  in  its  early  and  irrepressible  love  of  itself, 
took  the  position  of  disobedience  to  law  and  thus 
became  rebellion,  though  a  terrible  evil  in  itself,  is 
incidentally  a  gain  in  its  results.  And  the  reason 
of  this  is  found  in  what  has  already  been  intimated 
in  relation  to  the  love  and  goodness  of  God.  Man 
sins  and  suffers ;  but  he  is  not  deserted.  "  Can  a 
woman  forget  her  sucking  child,  that  she  should  not 
have  compassion  on  the  son  of  her  womb?  Yea, 
they  may  forget,  yet  will  I  not  forget  thee."  Great 
words,  uttered  by  an  ancient  Prophet  in  the  solitary 
mountains  of  Judea  ;  but  which  belong  to  all  lands 
and  nations.  And  what  then,  having  done  all  that 
he  consistently  could  do  by  instruction  or  in  other 
ways,  to  prevent  the  fall,  shall  he  do  now  that  the 
fall  has  become  a  reality?  Revealing  himself  in  the 
divine  analogy  of  his  works,  he  teaches  us  that  He 
does  just  what  the  true  earthly  parent  does  ;  only  in 
a  higher  degree  and   with    unspeakably  greater  re- 


MORAL  EVIL.  1 25 

suits.  In  the  first  place,  so  great  is  his  love  that  he 
allows  them  to  suffer,  or  perhaps  better  he  cannot 
help  their  suffering,  because  sin  and  suffering  neces- 
sarily go  together.  He  lets  them  suffer  so  long  as 
they  remain  in  disobedience,  because  there  is  no 
other  way.  The  ways  of  God  are  not  accidents,  but 
wisdoms;  not  the  uncertainties  and  the  variations 
of  time,  but  the  permanencies  of  eternity. 

gm — It  is  possible  that  some  will  say  here,  if  free- 
dom is  necessary  to  the  realization  and  the  constitu- 
tion of  their  manhood,  then  the  surrender  of  the 
will  to  God  is  practically  giving  up  the  great  charac- 
teristic of  humanity,  and  is  in  fact  the  withdrawal 
and  the  annihilation  of  the  great  essential  element 
which  makes  man  what  he  is.  It  was  perhaps  this 
fear  in  part,  in  man's  incipient  and  Adamic  condition, 
which  led  him  into  the  disobedience  of  rejecting  the 
divine  command.  But  it  was  only  a  fear,  and  not  a 
verity.  God  never  proposed,  and  never  can  propose, 
without  violence  to  the  most  glorious  truths  and  sym- 
pathies of  his  nature,  to  violate  man's  freedom,  or  to 
destroy  it,  or  injure  it  in  any  way  or  degree,  under 
any  circumstances  or  in  any  place ;  either  in  the  in- 
cipient Adamic  humanity  or  in  the  perfected  Christ 
humanity;  in  heaven,  earth,  or  hell;  in  time  or  in 
eternity.  All  that  He  proposes,  and  all  that  He 
asks,  in  view  of  the  creative  and  sustaining  relation- 


I26  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

ships  of  his  eternal  Fatherhood,  is,  that  He  may  be 
allowed  to  exercise  his  parental  interest  and  care, 
by  guiding  or  helping  to  guide  man  in  those  cases, 
(and  this  is  true  of  all  cases  of  voluntary  action,) 
which,  in  consequence  of  their  infinitely  varied  rela- 
tions, are  in  many  essential  respects  beyond  the 
reach  and  judgment  of  a  finite  mind.  Cases  where, 
if  he  is  not  guided  by  a  Mind  that  understands  this 
infinity  of  remote  facts  and  relations,  his  fall  becomes 
a  moral  necessity.  It  is  the  surrender  of  the  will 
under  these  circumstances  and  to  this  extent,  which 
God  demands  in  virtue  of  his  paternal  necessities ; 
and  its  refusal  on  the  part  of  man  is,  and  must  be 
his  certain  and  necessary  ruin.  But  such  a  surren- 
der of  the  will  as  this,  is  not  the  destruction  of  the 
will,  and  is  not  the  destruction  of  humanity  ;  but  on 
the  contrary  is  the  perfection  of  the  will's  action  by 
harmonizing  it  with  the  truth,  and  is  the  human 
will  harmonizing  with  the  will  of  God  in  the  divine 
marriage  of  a  common  thought  and  purpose;  and 
instead  of  being  the  destruction,  is  the  preservation 
and  the  perfection  of  humanity. 

io. — The  doctrine  of  the  Fall  then  understood 
in  its  principles,  stands  before  us  not  merely  in  the 
literal  statements  of  the  Scripture  narrative,  but  as 
one  of  the  great  problems  of  philosophy,  which  the 
truth  vindicates  and  accepts.     And  it    may  be  ac- 


MORAL  EVIL.  \2J 

ccpted  as  a  moral  axiom,  that  whatever  harmonizes 
with  the  truth  will  be  found  all  for  the  best.  It  was 
best  that  man  should  be  created  as  a  self-centred 
existence  or  self-hood,  with  the  freedom  appropriate 
to  it.  It  was  best  that  he  should  demonstrate  to 
himself  and  the  universe,  that  he  had  a  self-con- 
sciousness, a  positive  sphere  of  action,  a  personal 
responsibility,  a  divine  freedom  ;  and  thereby  vindi- 
cate his  deific  descent.  It  was  best  that  God 
should  leave  him  to  the  possibilities  of  the  Fall,  and 
that  he  should  fall  if  in  his  freedom  he  chose  to  do 
so  ;  not  only  for  the  reason  which  has  been  intimat- 
ed, that  he  might  be  assured  and  all  others  might 
be  assured  of  these  great  attributes  of  his  nature; 
but  that  the  love  of  God  might  be  summoned  to 
meet  the  exigency  of  his  unhappy  disobedience  and 
overthrow.  It  was  best  that  he  should  suffer  the 
sorrows  that  are  always  born  of  sin,  that  in  the 
greatness  of  his  anguish  he  might  cry  out  for 
help.  It  was  best  that  the  miseries  which  in  the 
Fall  flow  out  of  the  First  Birth,  should  lead  to  the 
blood-bought  inheritance  of  the  Second  Birth  ;  that 
self-hood  renouncing  its  personal  and  selfish  limita- 
tions, should  grow  up  into  universal-hood ;  that  an 
in-dwelling  Adam  should  be  exchanged  for  an  in- 
dwelling Christ  ;  and  the  Life  that  perishes  for  the 
Life  that  lives  forever. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

The  Divine  Purposes. 

I. — The   doctrine    of  the    Divine    Purposes,    to 
some  extent  in  the  more  general  form  of  Providen- 
tial arrangements,  but  especially  when  regarded  as 
including  the  doctrines  of  Decrees  and  Election,  and 
any  and  all  results  which  rest  specifically  upon  the 
decisions  of  the    Divine  will,  has  met  with  serious 
objections  in  the  minds  of  many.     And  yet  it  can- 
not well  be  doubted,  that   the  analogies  of  nature 
and  the  suggestions  and  arguments  of  a  broad  and 
reflective   philosophy  will  be   likely  to   discover  an 
important   and   perhaps   an    indispensable   truth    in 
that  direction.     Our  views  will  of  course  be  based 
upon   the   accepted  idea  of  the  existence   of  God. 
And  reasoning  upon  this  basis,  it  must  not  be  for- 
gotten, that  the  facts  of  the  universe,  whatever  they 
may  be,  embody  the  wisdom  of  the  Great  Mind  of 
the  universe  ;  and  the  wisdom  of  the  great  superin- 
tending Mind  cannot  possibly  be  separated  from  his 
goodness. 


THE  DIVINE  PURPOSES.  129 

And  the  first  question  which  arises  is,  what  has 
He  done?  In  other  words,  what  are  the  results  of 
his  mental  decisions  ?  We  shall  all  agree  I  suppose, 
that  we  find  the  answer  to  this  question  in  what  we 
everywhere  behold  around  us.  Looking  especially 
at  man,  who  is  commonly  regarded  as  the  greatest 
of  His  works,  we  find  the  condition  of  things  so  ex- 
isting, which  implies  that  they  are  so  originated  and 
so  arranged,  that  there  are  innumerable  diversities 
of  rich  and  poor,  of  learned  and  ignorant,  of  those 
who  are  bowed  in  sickness  and  affliction,  and  those 
who  are  in  prosperity,  of  men  in  palaces  and  men  in 
dungeons,  of  men  honored  by  virtues  and  men  de- 
graded by  crimes.  It  may  even  be  said  that  there 
are  no  two  situations  and  no  two  characters  which 
are  precisely  alike. 

2. — Now  it  must  be  admitted  that  this  state  of 
things  is  not  at  variance  with  the  thought  and  pur- 
pose of  the  great  controlling  Mind,  who  is  at  the 
head  of  all  things.  He  has  done  it  ;  and  in  the  ex- 
ercise of  the  highest  wisdom,  he  intended  to  do  it. 
It  harmonizes  with  his  idea  of  what  is  for  the  best ; 
it  constitutes  a  part  of  the  divine  plan — a  plan 
which  may  safely  appeal  to  the  highest  human 
reason  for  its  acceptance  and  approval.  It  is  possi- 
ble that  those  who  hold  adverse  or  unfavorable 
positions,  those  who  pine  on  beds  of  sickness  or 
6* 


j.0  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

look  out  upon  the  bright  world  through  the  grates 
of  a  prison,  may  not  always  clearly  see  the  evidences 
of  wisdom   or  even  of  justice.     But  when  we  look 
away  from  individual  cases  which  considered  alone 
might  perplex  the  judgment,  and  contemplate  crea- 
tion as  a  great  system,  in  which  the  highest  wisdom 
as  well  as  the  highest  benevolence  is  called  upon  to 
develop  itself,  I  think  we  cannot  fail  to  approve  of 
and  to  accept   the  wisdom  of  that  grand  creative 
idea,  which  harmonizes  the  central  unity  of  things 
with    the    greatest    possible   diversities.      In    other 
words  we  find  the  leading  principle  of  a  philosophic 
answer  to  the  objections  that  are  made  to  the  great 
doctrine  of  unity  and  diversity.     Look  abroad  upon 
outward  nature.     And  can  it  be  affirmed  that  it  is 
less  beautiful  or  less  wisely  ordered,  because  it  is  not 
an  unvaried  and  level  expanse,  but  is  diversified  by 
rocks,  valleys   and   mountains?      And   what   would 
humanity  be,  where  would  be  the  interest  attached 
to   it,  if  everything  were   reduced   to   a  dead  level, 
without  diversities  of  thought,  without  varieties  of 
action,  without  the  hills  and  valleys  and  rocky  and 
rugged  places  of  comparative  situation,  with  all  poor 
and  none  rich,  or  all  rich  and  none  poor :  so  that  a 
man  would  find  it  impossible  to  be  interested  in  the 
welfare    of  his    neighbor,  and    still    less   to  do  him 
good.     Such   a  state  of  things,  like  a  dead  level  in 


THE  DIVINE  PURPOSES. 


131 


the  material  world,  would  answer  perhaps  for  a  day 
or  an  hour,  but  would  soon  become  a  profitless  and 
hopeless  stupidity. 

3. — And    now,  when  we  attempt   to   look  more 
carefully  into  the  origin  of  things  or  rather  into  the 
causes  of  things,  not  merely  the  beginning  but  the 
intelligent  cause   which  makes  their  beginning,  we 
are  obliged  to  say,  since  we  have  nothing  else  to  say, 
that  the  causative  principle  of  this  state  of  things  is 
God    himself.      And    we    mean   by   this,  that    God 
stands  at  the  head  not  only  of  creation  but  of  the 
diversities  of  creation  ;  not  only  of  existence  but  of 
all  the  modifications  and  varieties  of  existence.     God 
makes   the    sunshine,   and   God    makes   the    storm. 
The  springtime  and  the  harvest ;  the  summer  and 
the  winter  are  the   Lord's  :  God  made  the  mount- 
ains :  the  hills  and  the  valleys  also  are  the  works  of 
his  hand.     The  rivers  and  the  fountains  are  his :  and 
he  makes  mighty  seas  and  oceans.     The  universe  in 
some  important  sense,  is  the  reflex  of  himself;  and 
its  infinite  diversities  are  the  expression  of  the  wis- 
dom and  the  boundless  resources  which  are  hidden 
in  the  infinitude  of  his  nature.     And  this  causative 
relation  which  makes  him  the  responsible  head  of 
all  things,  extends  to  things  intellectual  and  moral 
as  well  as   physical ;  to  man   as  well  as  to  outward 
nature ;  to   every  incident   of  his   being   and   every 


j  <,  2  AB  SOL  U  TE  RELIGION. 

form  of  his  activity.  In  the  theological  and  dog- 
matic form  of  expression,  to  which  we  are  now 
directing  attention,  it  is  a  matter  of  purpose  and 
decree.  God  sustains  not  merely  a  permissive,  but 
a  positive  and  authoritative  relation.  He  has  "  de- 
creed "the  facts  of  existence,  he  has  "elected"  the 
course  of  individuals  and  empires. 

4. — And  all  this,  notwithstanding  it  seems  to 
sound  harshly,  we  can  admit  and  affirm,  when  the 
matter  is  stated  in  its  full  extent  and  placed  in  its 
proper  relations.  Let  it  not  be  forgotten  that  in 
the  universality  of  this  grand  "  decree  "  and  in  the 
discriminations  of  that  authoritative  process  which 
"  elects  "  one  vessel  to  "  honor  and  another  to  dis- 
honor," he  embraces  as  a  part  of  his  scheme  the  fact 
of  man's  moral  freedom  and  its  inviolability;  the 
immutable  distinction  of  right  and  wrong ;  the  rela- 
tion of  wrong  to  punishment  and  of  punishment  to 
wrong  ;  the  principle  of  growth  by  means  of  exertion 
and  trial ;  the  mighty  compensations  of  time,  which 
as  time  cannot  be  separated  from  eternity  are 
known  only  to  himself;  the  adjustment  of  diversi- 
ties which  are  seen,  with  harmonies  that  are  neces- 
sarily unseen,  except  by  minds  that  can  embrace  all 
facts  and  all  relations ;  that  though  some  fall  and 
some  rise,  yet  there  "  is  not  a  sparrow  that  falleth 
to  the  ground   without  his  notice,"  that   though   he 


THE  DIVINE  TUEPOSES.  133 

saw  his  own  Son  nailed  to  the  cross,  yet  he  placed 
upon  his  head  the  crown  which  shall  shine  through 
the  eternity  of  ages; — let  these  and  many  other 
things  be  remembered  and  taken  into  account  in 
the  consideration  of  this  great  subject.  All  that  a 
proper  regard  for  the  truth  requires  is,  that  the 
proper  breadth  may  be  given  to  the  problem  ;  that 
it  may  be  considered  in  its  universality  and  in  the 
measureless  extent  of  its  possibilities.  And  whether 
it  be  called  "  divine  purpose,"  or  "  decree,"  or  u  elec- 
tion" or  by  any  other  name,  it  holds  a  truth,  when 
properly  discriminated  and  set  in  its  true  light, 
which  philosophy  accepts,  and  practical  religion  has 
never  been  able  to  dispense  with. 

5. — But  if  we  must  accept  moral  freedom  at  the 
same  time  that  we  accept  divine  supremacy,  the 
question  arises, — By  what  process  can  they  be  harmo- 
nized with  each  other  ?  Where  are  the  philosophic 
methods  which  can  reconcile  what  either  is,  or  at 
least  has  the  appearance  of  being,  a  positive  contra- 
diction ?  If  we  take  the  ground  that  they  are  really 
contradictions,  we  must  of  course  admit  that  they 
cannot  be  reconciled.  But  in  point  of  fact  there  are, 
and  can  be  no  contradictions  in  the  universe  of  God. 
A  contradiction  in  the  thoughts  or  acts  of  God,  or 
in  anything  which  makes  a  part  of  his  created  uni- 
verse, necessarily  implies  an  imperfection  in  his  char- 


I  34  ABSOL  UTE  RELIGION. 

acter  entirely  at  variance  with  the  accepted  -ideas 
of  the  completeness  of  his  knowledge  and  wisdom. 
Collect  and  collate  the  facts  that  are  presented  to 
notice  around  us,  facts  mental  as  well  as  material  ; 
facts  which  pertain  to  the  spiritual  sphere  of  things 
as  well  as  those  which  belong  to  the  outward  and 
tangible  ;  and  go  further  and  establish  all  theories 
and  systems  which  legitimately  flow  from  them  ; 
and  it  is  true  of  one  and  all  of  them  that  they  do 
and  must  harmonize. 

We  do  not  say,  nor  would  it  be  proper  to  say, 
that  their  harmony  is  always  perceived  ;  which  is  a 
very  different  thing.  But  the  harmony  exists, 
whether  it  be  perceived  or  not.  As  the  facts  in 
their  vast  multitude  overleap  all  known  limitations, 
it  is  not  possible  that  the  human  mind,  in  its  ac- 
knowledged fmiteness,  should  understand  and  ad- 
just them  all,  either  in  themselves  as  objective  facts 
or  in  their  subjective  relations.  And  this  state  of 
things  lays  the  foundation  for  the  exercise  of  belief 
existing  in  matters  beyond  the  reach  of  the  senses 
and  even  of  consciousness.  A  true  philosophy,  one 
which  includes  God  as  well  as  man,  embraces  and 
affirms  the  doctrine  of  faith.  And  what  we  cannot 
understand  as  a  matter  of  direct  perception,  we  are 
still  justified,  on  appropriate  occasions,  in  having 
faith  beyond  the  limit  of  the  revelation   of  the  un- 


THE  DIVINE  PURPOSES.  135 

derstanding.  And  hence  I  think  we  may  sec  a  true 
philosophical  spirit  in  a  remark  of  Mr.  Locke,  where 
he  says  ; — "  I  own  freely  to  you  the  weakness  of  my 
understanding,  that,  though  it  be  unquestionable 
that  there  is  omnipotence  and  omniscience  in  God 
our  Maker,  and  though  I  cannot  have  a  clearer  per- 
ception of  anything  than  that  I  am  free,  yet  I  can- 
not make  [meaning  undoubtedly  that  he  could  not 
explain  and  clear  up  in  all  respects  how  it  should  be 
so,]  freedom  in  man  consistent  with  omnipotence 
and  omniscience  in  God,  though  I  am  as  fully  persua- 
ded of  both  as  of  any  trttth  I  most  firmly  assent  to  ; 
and  therefore  I  have  long  since  given  up  the  consid- 
eration of  that  question,  resolving  all  into  this  short 
conclusion,  that  if  it  be  possible  for  God  to  make  a 
free  agent,  then  man  is  free,  though  I  see  not  the 
way  of  it." 

6. — Humanity  needs  a  God  who  is  a  reality  and 
not  a  pretence.  I  think  that  man  had  rather  be 
under  a  tyrant  than  under  a  liberty  which  is  with- 
out law,  or  under  an  authority  which  gives  no  pro- 
tection. God,  who  is  neither  the  weakness  of  a 
semblance  nor  the  cruelty  of  an  injustice,  is  the  pro- 
tector of  the  weak  and  the  avenger  of  the  injured. 
He  is  no  tyrant  ;  but  we  recognize  both  wisdom  and 
justice  when  we  say  he  is  God. 

There  are  moral  evidences  as  well  as  intellectual; 


136  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

evidences  which  are  based  upon  human  action.  If 
the  positive  authority  of  God  culminating  in  results 
which  lead  intelligent  men  to  speak  of  his  decrees, 
elections,  and  sovereign  purposes,  is  not  merely  a 
dogmatism  but  a  truth,  it  will  be  found  to  be 
strongly  sustained  as  such  by  the  practical  results 
in  the  lives  and  acts  of  those  who  receive  it.  And 
undoubtedly  the  evidence  from  this  source  is  such 
as  to  arrest  attention.  Among  the  men  in  all  ages 
of  the  world  who  have  been  distinguished  for  firm- 
ness of  purpose  and  endurance  of  trial,  there  have 
been  a  large  number  who  have  adopted  these  views 
of  God.  Such  were  the  Waldenses,  whose  touching 
story  will  be  remembered  as  long  as  the  lofty  cliffs 
shall  stand,  from  which  in  the  support  of  their  opin- 
ions, they  were  thrown  headlong  and  dashed  to 
pieces. 

Such  were  the  Covenanters  of  Scotland,  whose 
great  theme  was  the  sovereignty  of  God,  and  who 
in  their  trials  and  sufferings  carried  to  the  extreme 
of  human  endurance,  could  bless  the  hand  that 
"doeth  all  things  well." 

Such  were  the  Jansenists  who,  in  adopting  the 
Augustinian  method  of  religious  thought,  including 
the  Protestant  doctrine  of  Justification  by  Faith, 
took  a  position  which  exposed  them  to  misrepre- 
sentation  and    to    the    greatest    trials.      The   great 


THE  DIVINE  PURPOSES.  137 

names  of  Pascal,  Arnauld  and  others  among  them, 
renowned  alike  for  genius  and  piety,  could  not  save 
them  from  fearful  persecutions  which  have  made 
their  history  memorable  in  the  annals  of  human 
sorrow. 

Such  were  the  Pilgrims  and  Puritans  of  New 
England,  whose  instructive  history  is  repeated  by 
their  descendants,  not  only  on  account  of  its  strange 
and  romantic  incidents  and  its  great  civil  and  polit- 
ical results,  but  as  an  illustration  of  the  greatness 
of  human  strength  when  it  rests  believingly  on  the 
•strength  and  purpose  of  an  Almighty  Arm. 

7.— It  is  true  then,  that  God  decides  our  destiny. 
And  he  does  so,  because  all  truth,  all  justice,  and  all 
good,  look  to  him  for  the  approbation  of  his  wis- 
dom, and  for  the  support  of  his  strength.  Either 
God  rules  or  what  is  called  fatality  rules.  But  the 
Absolute  Religion  which  is  the  highest  declaration 
of  philosophy,  rejects  the  unsatisfactory  dogma  of 
fatalism,  as  a  dishonor  to  truth  and  a  crucifixion  to 
humanity.  But  in  rejecting  fatalism,  it  does  not 
reject  the  doctrine  of  the  divine  supremacy.  Men 
cannot  afford  to  part  with  the  great  Calvinistic  idea 
which  has  become  a  part  of  human  history;  but 
they  will  do  well  to  surround  it  with  accessories 
which  save  it  from  exaggerations  and  which  present 
it  in  the  true  light 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

Universality  of  Religious   Thought, 

I. — If  there  is  a  foundation  for  the  doctrine  of 
an  Absolute  Religion,  then  we  shall  find  intimations 
and  evidences  of  moral  and  religious  thought  in  all 
lands ;  and  though  separately  considered  they  may 
bear  the  marks  of  imperfection  and  weakness,  yet 
they  will  be  found  harmonizing  in  one  general  ten- 
dency, and  contributing  to  one  great  result.  Before 
the  time  of  Moses  there  were^  men, — -Enoch,  Abra- 
ham and  Noah  may  be  mentioned  as  examples, — 
who  were  inwardly  taught,  and  who  communicated 
valuable  religious-truth  to  others. 

The  respect  and  even  reverential  homage  shown 
by  Abraham  to  Melchisedek,  in  relation  to  whom 
it  was  said,  he  was  without  father  or  mother,  in 
other  words,  without  genealogical  or  historical  rec- 
ord, may  be  regarded  as  incidentally  revealing  the 
fact  of  a  religious  character  and  position.  The  Ab- 
solute Religion,  abstractly  considered,  has  its  foun- 
dation in  the  nature  and  relation  of  things  ;  but  the 


UNI  VER SA LI T  Y  OF  RELIGIO  US  TIIO  UGHT.      j  39 

truths  contained  in  it  find  their  practical  realization 
and  their  expression  in  the  thoughts,  lives,  and 
history  of  individuals.  Melchisedek  was  one  of 
these  persons.  The  Egyptians  had  a  religious  sys- 
tem. And  it  is  not  unreasonable  to  suppose  that 
Moses  may  have  received  some  important  religious 
ideas  from  this  remarkable  people,  among  whom  he 
was  brought  up  and  educated.  The  authorship  of 
the  first  five  books  of  the  Bible  is  ascribed  to  Moses ; 
but  a  careful  examination  of  the  first  part  of  Genesis 
in  the  original  Hebrew  shows,  in  the  view  of  many 
learned  men,  that  he  made  use  of  and  incorporated 
into  his  work  certain  historical  documents  written 
by  other  persons  of  an  earlier  date ;  but  who  they 
were  or  to  what  land  belonging,  is  now  unknown. 

2.— The  labors  of  the  learned  are  greatly  per- 
plexed in  ascertaining  who  was  Job,  and  to  what 
land  or  people  he  belonged.  But  the  intuitions  of 
the  readers  of  his  wonderful  poem  can  affirm  boldly, 
in  default  of  the  records  of  personal  history,  that, 
though  unknown  and  mysterious  as  Melchisedek,  he 
was  nevertheless  a  man  of  thought,  of  vast  poetic 
imagination,  and  filled  with  inspirational  teachings 
coming  from  above.  In  the  latter  days  of  the  He- 
brew commonwealth,  and  greatly  separated  in  cer- 
tain particulars  of  belief  and  practice  from  the  great 
mass  of  the  Jewish   people,  whole   sects  made  their 


I4o  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

appearance,  who  may  be  described  as  seekers  after 
divine  knowledge  and  as  truly  inspirational.  The 
history  of  the  Essenes  and  Therapeutae,  as  it  is  given 
apparently  from  living  and  reliable  sources,  by  Philo 
and  Josephus,  reveals  facts  of  moral  and  religious  in- 
sight and  culture  which  are  explainable  only  on  the 
ground  that  the  Living  Principle  of  the  universe, 
moved  by  the  necessity  involved  in  the  universality 
of  His  great  loving  nature,  has  imparted  to  many 
solitary  and  praying  hearts,  whose  religious  position 
has  not  been  generally  recognized,  some  preparatory 
portions  of  the  truths  of  the  everlasting  Gospel. 
At  a  still  later  period  in  history,  in  the  Neo-Platonic 
school  of  Alexandria,  which  pursued  its  investiga 
tions  to  a  considerable  extent  outside  of  the  pale  of 
Christianity,  there  are  thoughts  and  aspirations, 
which  remind  one  of  the  sublime  meditations,  and 
the  deep  spiritual  experiences  of  the  Almarics  and 
Dinantos  of  the  middle  ages,  with  all  the  light  and 
development  they  had  received  from  the  teachings 
of  the  New  Testament. 

3. — It  was  in  those  ancient  days  and  in  periods 
exceedingly  remote,  and  in  another  part  of  the 
world,  that  other  teachers,  under  the  blooming  shade 
of  Indian  forests,  and  among  them  the  mysterious 
Sakya-Mouni,  made  their  appearance.  Millions 
have   been    influenced    by    the    teachings    of    this 


UNIVERSALITY  OF  RELIGIOUS  THOUGHT. 


141 


remarkable  man.  A  prince,  with  all  that  wealth  and 
political  position  could  contribute  to  his  personal 
happiness,  and  yet  so  deeply  impressed  with  the 
wants  and  miseries  of  men,  that  he  retired  into  the 
most  solitary  places,  and  aided  by  the  preparation 
of  many  years  of  abstinence  and  prayer,  came  forth 
a  humble  and  beneficent  teacher  of  practical  princi- 
ples, which  the  more  enlightened  piety  of  the  present 
age  is  compelled  to  respect.  And  so,  in  like  manner 
God  had  mercy  on  the  Persians  and  the  Chinese  ; 
and  in  order  that  there  might  not  be  need  of  another 
deluge  and  of  other  fires  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah, 
kindled  the  light  of  truth,  feeble  though  it  may  have 
been,  in  the  bosoms  of  Zoroaster  and  Confucius. 
The  connection  of  the  Persians  with  the  Hebrews, 
which  was  in  part  owing  to  a  harmony  of  religious 
thought,  is  a  matter  of  great  interest.  The  second 
Temple  was  built  under  Persian  authority  and  with 
Persian  aid.  In  Persia  where  the  religious  ideas  in 
relation  to  God,  approximated  to  those  of  the  He- 
brews, the  opinion  was  widely  prevalent  that  a  great 
religious  teacher  and  deliverer  was  to  come.  And 
at  the  appointed  period  the  "  Wise  Men"  as  they 
are  called,  who  were  probably  persons  belonging  to 
the  select  and  honored  class  of  Persian  Magi,  came 
from  that  distant  land  to  do  homage  to  the  child  of 
Bethlehem. 


!42  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

4. — If  we  look  in  other  directions  we  find  the 
same  remarkable  fact,  that  everywhere  great  moral 
and  religious  truths  more  or  less  clearly  make  their 
appearance.  Of  those  who  received  something  of 
this  heavenly  illumination  among  other  peoples  and 
in  other  times,  is  it  too  much  to  say  that  Homer,  a 
great  reality,  although  a  man  as  much  unknown  as 
Melchisedek  and  Job,  was  reached  by  some  scatter- 
ed rays.  Let  the  man  of  deep  moral  intuition  read 
the  works  of  that  prince  of  poets,  particularly  the 
Odyssey,  not  to  settle  points  of  geography  or  primi- 
tive history,  but  to  learn  the  facts  and  methods  of 
human  action  and  the  principles  which  lay  at  its 
foundation ;  and  he  will  meet  with  moral  problems, 
and  with  moral  and  spiritual  suggestions,  the  origin 
of  which  can  find  an  explanation  only  in  such  views 
as  have  now  been  presented.  It  is  said  of  Plato, 
that  he  visited  Egypt  and  studied  at  Heliopolis  ; 
and  the  remains  of  ancient  art  reveal  to  the  aston- 
.  ished  eye  of  the  modern  traveller,  that  the  City  ol 
the  Sun  may  have  had  attractions  even  for  such  a 
mind  as  Plato's;  but  those  who  have  deeply  pon- 
dered the  import  of  his  writings,  will  be  slow  to 
believe  that  the  teachings  of  Egyptian  priests 
wholly  superseded  the  higher  and  better  teachings, 
which  fall  in  mercy  everywhere  from  the  universal 
presence  and  the  universal   operation  of  the  great 


UNIVERSALITY  OF  RELIGIOUS  THOUGHT. 


143 


Living  Principle.  And  we  may  speak  of  Socrates, 
the  light  of  Athens,  whose  scientific  and  moral  doc- 
trines were  illustrated  by  the  genius  of  Plato  ;  the 
memory  of  whose  sufferings  and  death  for  the  truth, 
is  not  recalled  even  in  these  late  days  without  the 
greatest  sympathy  and  sorrow.  The  doctrine  of  the 
Grecian  dramatists,  particularly  ^Eschylus,  is,  that 
evil  deeds  are  followed  by  retribution;  and  that 
Jupiter,  whom  they  regarded  as  the  highest  ruling 
power  in  human  affairs,  distributes  to  every  one 
according  to  the  good  or  evil  character  which  at- 
taches to  his  doing, — a  reality  so  great,  that  its 
freedom  can  never  be  touched  by  arbitrary  power, 
and  which  holds  in  its  own  hand  the  height  and 
the  degradation  of  its  measureless  destiny.  It 
may  justly  be  asserted,  that  man  with  all  his  lia- 
bilities to  a  morally  evil  course,  is  worthy  of  a 
high  degree  of  reverential  respect,  and  is  always 
an  object  of  the  deepest  interest  so  long  as  he 
holds  in  his  bosom  the  possibilities  and  seed  of  im- 
mortality. Whatever  may  be  said  of  his  actually 
sinning  or  of  his  liability  to  sin,  it  is  still  true 
that  he  is  a  child  of  God,  born  in  the  image  of 
God.  Xor  is  it  inconsistent  with  this  great  truth 
that  he  was,  is,  and  necessarily  must  be  sub- 
jected to  law.  It  cannot  be  otherwise.  And  espe- 
cially   is    he    subjected    to    that    wide-reaching  and 


144  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

eternal  law  which  God  himself  cannot  modify  or 
repeal  without  a  violation  of  his  own  moral  nature, 
that  so  far  as  he  comes  in  contact  with  them,  he 
must  respect  the  position  and  practically  and  fully 
recognize  the  rights  and  claims  of  any  and  all  be- 
ings and  things  in  the  universe.  This  law,  which 
carries  with  it  the  sanctions  of  happiness  or  suffer- 
ing, resolves  itself  into  another  equally  clear  to  our 
intuitional  convictions,  that  inasmuch  as  it  can  be 
fulfilled  only  in  one  way,  he  must  place  himself  in 
the  keeping  of  the  Infinite  Mind  ;  and  by  a  second 
and  grander  birth  be  bom,  or  if  it  be  preferred,  be 
intellectually  and  affectionally  expanded  out  of  the 
limitations  and  necessary  imperfections  of  self-hood, 
so  that  seeing  with  God's  eye  and  feeling  with  God's 
heart  and  acting  in  God's  will,  who  is  both  the 
originating  and  the  conservative  force  of  the  uni- 
verse, he  can  become  the  child  of  God  in  the  higher 
and  eternal  sense.  So  that  the  new  or  second  birth 
which  changes  man's  centre  from  the  one  to  the  all, 
and  from  man  to  God,  so  far  from  being  the  oppro- 
brium of  theology,  is  its  culmination  and  its  crown  of 
honor.  And  if  it  is  inconsistent  with  that  mistaken 
and  pretended  philosophy,  which  makes  man  a  ma- 
terialism and  death  an  eternal  sleep,  is  not  incon- 
sistent with  philosophy  of  a  higher  and  diviner 
origin. 


UNIVERSALITY  OF  RELIGIOUS  THOUGHT.      145 

5. — And  again  what  controversies  have  existed, 
what  mental  battles  have  been  fought,  over  the 
supposed  and  alleged  contradictions  of  the  Trinity. 
But  the  difficulty  was,  that  humanity,  struggling  out 
of  the  depths  of  the  sensuous  and  limited,  had  not 
reached  that  higher  position,  where  it  could  recog- 
nize the  mighty  and  world-renovating  truth  of  the 
Motherhood  of  God. 

And  if  under  the  biblical  name  of  Wisdom  or  the 
Word,  hidden  somewhat  for  wise  purposes  until  the 
fulness  of  time,  there  is  an  eternal  Motherhood  as 
well  as  eternal  Fatherhood,  then  it  is  no  offence  to 
the  highest  reason  to  assert,  that  there  is  and  must 
be  either  actually  or  potentially,  in  posse  or  in  esse, 
an  eternal  Son.  And  in  that  Sonship  linked  to  the 
Infinite  by  a  divine  affiliation,  happy  will  it  be  if  we 
too,  in  the  expansion  and  completion  of  the  second 
Birth,  shall  find  ourselves  included. 

6. — Other  things  might  be  mentioned.  The 
doctrine  of  salvation  by  faith  for  instance,  on  the 
basis  that  salvation  in  its  essential  nature  is  a  mental 
state  and  not  a  locality,  so  far  from  being  a  preten- 
tious mystery  and  theological  figment,  has  its  foun- 
dation in  well  ascertained  mental  principles.  Sal- 
vation in  its  true  sense  is  impossible  in  any  other 
way.  And  if  it  be  asked  how  it  was  possible  that 
Christ  and  his  unlettered  followers,  the  most  of 
7 


I4.6  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

whom  had  no  especial  advantages  of  education,  be- 
came so  richly  gifted  in  philosophical  verities,  I 
answer  that  the  philosophy  of  the  human  mind  was 
first  hidden  in  the  Infinite  Mind,  and  that  the  sim- 
plicity and  truth  of  their  hearts  fitted  them  as  noth- 
ing else  can  fit  men,  to  become  apt  and  successful 
disciples  in  the  inward  teachings  of  the  eternal 
God. 


CHAPTER   XIV. 
Harmony  of  Religions  Opinions. 

i. — The  Absolute  Religion,  so  far  as  it  can  be  es- 
tablished and  accepted,  necessarily  tends  to  the  har- 
mony of  opinions.  We  do  not  forget,  however,  in 
view  of  the  actually  existing  constitution  of  the  hu- 
man mind,  that  absolute  harmony  of  opinion  on  all 
subjects  is  an  impossibility.  Differences  of  opinion 
exist  as  the  unavoidable  result  of  differences  in  men- 
tal structure,  and  of  the  different  positions  and  as- 
pects in  which  objects  of  inquiry  are  presented  for 
consideration.  And  such  differences,  which  have 
their  foundation  in  the  wisdom  that  regulates  all 
things,  are  one  of  the  sources  of  the  activity  and  hap- 
piness of  life.  Nevertheless,  when  controverted  sub- 
jects are  examined  beyond  the  region  of  facts  to  the 
region  of  principles,  and  when  principles  are  recog- 
nized by  the  highest  reason,  it  may  justly  be  antici- 
pated that  harmony  of  views,  in  such  cases  and  to 
such  extent,  will  exist. 

2. — A  controversy  of  long  duration   has  existed 


I48  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

in  relation  to  man's  character  at  the  time  of  his  birth. 
The  controversy  involves  a  variety  of  questions ;  and 
particularly  whether  man  at  the  time  of  his  birth  is 
a  depraved  or  an  innocent  being ;  and  if  his  charac- 
ter be  that  of  purity  or  innocence,  in  what  way  are 
we  to  explain  the  acknowledged  fact  of  great  moral 
evils  existing  in  the  world.  If  we  have  given  a  true 
exposition  of  the  Absolute  view,  of  which  we  must 
leave  others  to  judge,  we  have  seen  how  the  various 
apparently  contradictory  views  in  relation  to  human 
depravity  may  be  reconciled.  And  this  certainly, 
when  we  remember  how  much  time  has  been  spent 
on  the  subject  and  how  much  bad  feeling  engender- 
ed, is  a  great  gain. 

3-— And  so  in  regard  to  the  atonement,  as  it  is 
theologically,  and  as  it  seems  to  me  very  properly, 
termed.  Atonement  in  its  etymological  sense 
means  reconciliation  and  union  with  God ;  and  phil- 
osophy declares,  that  this  could  not  take  place  with- 
out the  forgiveness  of  sin,  as  antecedent  to  the  re- 
moval of  that  moral  antagonism  which  necessarily 
exists  between  a  sinning  and  a  sinless  being.  It  will 
perhaps  be  said,  that  the  difficulty  is  not  so  much 
with  the  thing  as  with  the  way  or  manner  in  which 
it  is  accomplished,  namely,  by  the  shedding  of  the 
blood  of  Jesus.  But  when  it  is  remembered,  that 
the  blood  cannot  be  separated  from  the  divine,  liv- 


HARMONY  OF  RELIGIOUS  OPINIONS. 


I49 


ing,  and  eternal  principle  which  is  the  life  of  the 
blood,  and  without  which  the  blood  would  not  have 
efficacy,  it  can  hardly  fail  to  relieve  thoughtful  and 
conscientious  minds.  Many,  encouraged  by  this  in- 
terior and  deeper  but  necessary  view,  have  hastened 
to  yield  their  hearts  and  lives  to  the  mighty  and  re- 
generating influences  of  the  great  principle, — the 
principle  which  both  creates  and  saves — that  finds  its 
manifestation  in  the  Cross.  And  then  it  is  to  be  re- 
membered further,  that  words  in  certain  aspects  of 
them  are  things,  and  often  in  their  control  over  the 
human  mind,  are  very  powerful  things. 

In  the  case  of  many  persons  the  long  use  of  cer- 
tain expressions  in  relation  to  the  blood  of  Christ, 
(words  which  have  a  providential  and  wise  relation 
to  the  first  or  sensuous  development  of  man's  nature,) 
make  it  very  difficult  for  them  after  a  time  to  make 
the  distinction  which  has  just  now  been  referred  to. 
Nevertheless,  the  ultimate  philosophy  requires  the 
distinction  to  be  made,  and  at  the  same  time  points 
out  the  relation  and  unites  and  harmonizes  the  two. 
And  the  Scriptures,  when  rightly  interpreted  and 
when  searched  to  their  foundations,  are  not  antagon- 
istical,  but  harmonize,  in  this  case  as  in  all  others, 
with  a  right  philosophy. 

4. — Again,  the  doctrine  of  the  first  and  second 
birth    and    their    relation   to    each    other,  (a  matter 


l$0  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

which  has  caused  much  perplexity,)  not  only  har- 
monizes with  the  statements  of  the  Scriptures  and 
with  outward  facts  ;  but  considered,  as  it  truly  is,  as 
a  great  mental  and  moral  problem,  vindicates  its 
claims  to  the  highest  wisdom.  It  makes  man,  not 
a  machine  merely,  moving  no  one  knows  how  in  the 
iron  tracks  of  a  dead  materialism,  but  a  grand  and 
active  reality  in  the  universe,  even  in  his  first  condi- 
tion of  self-hood  and  of  self-asserting  independence. 

5. — Rome,  too,  had  her  teachers;  Numa,  the 
founder  of  institutions  and  laws ;  Camillus  who  an- 
nounced the  great  truth,  which  Christianity  has 
verified,  "  adversce  res  admonuerunt  religionum;" 
Cato,  who  did  right,  "  not  to  be  seen  to  do  it,  but 
because  he  could  not  help  doing  it ;  "  Cicero,  the 
eloquent  and  intuitional  expounder  of  philosophical 
problems;  Seneca,  who  resisted  the  corruptions  of  a 
degenerate  age ;  and  among  the  long  list  of  those 
who  announced  the  truth  and  struggled  against 
error,  that  wonderful  bard  of  Mantua,  whose  beauti- 
ful and  sublime  utterances  were,  in  some  sense,  the 
Gospel  of  his  time  and  country.  And  all  this  is  in 
accordance  with  what  the  Apostle  Paul  has  said  of 
the  Gentiles,  that  they  are  a  law  unto  themselves, 
and  show  the  works  of  the  law  written  in  their 
hearts ;  in  other  words,  that  God  has  made  to  all 
men  everywhere  an  inward  moral  revelation.     It  is 


HARMON  Y  OF  RELIGIO  US  OPINIONS.         i  5  1 

not  surprising,  therefore,  that  Sir  James  Mackintosh, 
one  of  the  eminent  statesmen  and  philosophers  of 
modern  times,  says,  in  a  learned  discourse  on  the 
Law  of  Nature  and  Nations,  that  "  lawgivers  and 
statesmen,  but  above  all,  moralists  and  political 
philosophers,  may  plainly  discover,  in  all  the  useful 
and  beautiful  variety  of  governments  and  institu- 
tions, and  under  all  the  fantastic  multitude  of  usages 
and  rites  which  have  prevailed  among  men,  the 
same  fundamental,  comprehensive  truths,  the  sacred 
master  principles,  which  are  the  guardians  of  human 
society,  recognized  and  revered,  with  few  and  slight 
exceptions,  by  every  nation  upon  earth."  A  view 
which  was  anticipated,  and  which  is  sustained  by  a 
multitude  of  facts  and  quotations,  in  the  profound 
volumes  of  Montesquieu  and  Grotius. 

6. — It  is  thus  we  remember,  with  deep  gratitude, 
what  God  has  done  for  the  nations  in  the  earliest 
times;  how  He  has  borne  with  their  sins,  and  has 
always  given  them  that  kind  and  degree  of  instruc- 
tion which  was  best  suited  to  their  situation.  No 
nation  ever  has  been,  or  ever  can  be  wholly  forgot- 
ten. The  God  of  the  Hebrews,  although  in  some 
respects  with  less  intimate  relations,  was  neverthe- 
less the  God  of  Greece  and  Rome.  And  history 
abundantly  shows,  that  the  historical  development 
of  those  remarkable  nations,  including  literature  as 


j  ^  2  ABSOL  UTE  RELIGION. 

well  as  arms,  and  art  as  well  as  power,  was  precisely 
adjusted,  in  time  and  circumstances,  to  the  Hebrew 
development.  And  when  in  the  fulness  of  time  the 
Star  of  Bethlehem  arose,  which  otherwise  would 
have  shone  only  over  the  waters  of  Galilee  and  the 
hills  of  Judea,  it  became  the  guiding  light  and  the 
illumination  of  the  world,  through  the  aiding  influ- 
ences of  Greek  and  Roman  civilization. 

y. — This  subject,  of  which  we  have  thus  given  a 
short  and  imperfect  outline,  is  well  worthy  of  the 
attention  of  the  Christian  scholar.  It  is  a  subject 
which  can  never  be  thoroughly  mastered,  except  by 
those  who  combine  the  learning  of  human  schools 
with  a  religious  nature  and  deep  religious  experi- 
ence. Learning,  religion  and  philosophy  must  go 
hand  in  hand  in  its  development.  It  may  require 
the  destruction  or  the  re-adjustment  of  nations  ;  but 
Christ  as  God  incarnate  in  the  great  principles  which 
he  taught  and  illustrated,  and  which  are  recognized 
and  affirmed  by  the  highest  reason,  will  at  last  as- 
cend the  height  of  his  position  and  exercise  his  uni- 
versal dominion. 

President  Edwards,  in  his.  truly  great  work  on 
the  History  of  Redemption,  is  right  in  giving  us  to 
understand  that  God,  as  the  living  principle  of  the 
ages,  and  especially  in  the  great  fact  of  his  Incarna- 
tion, is   the  key-note  to  the   philosophy  of  history, 


HARMONY  OF  RELIGIOUS  OPINIONS.         153 

God's  life  knows  no  cessation  of  activity ;  and  his 
wisdom  and  benevolence  will  always  turn  that  activ- 
ity in  the  right  direction.  The  car  of  the  universe 
is  not  floating  at  random  ;  but  under  the  Master's 
hand  is  always  tending  to  one  great  issue. 
7* 


CHAPTER   XV. 

Optimism. 

I. — God  rules.  God  is  good.  And  He  rules  in 
such  a  way  that  goodness  can  never  be  excluded. 
In  the  end  when  events  are  connected  both  with 
causes  and  results,  all  will  be  found  for  the  best. 
And  this,  expressed  in  few  and  simple  terms,  is  what 
is  known  historically  as  Optimism, — a  doctrine 
which  not  only  has  its  foundation  in  the  Absolute 
Truth,  but  which  is  practically  of  so  much  impor- 
tance that  it  is  well  entitled  to  careful  considera- 
tion. 

2. — The  subject  may  be  argued  and  illustrated 
from  various  points  of  view.  It  may  be  said  per- 
haps by  some  in  a  simple  sentence,  that  if  God  is 
supreme,  and  if  at  the  same  time  his  existence  is 
characterized  by  perfect  goodness,  the  optimistic 
result,  which  is  identical  with  the  greatest  possible 
good,  necessarily  follows.  There  cannot  possibly 
be  any  other.  All  things  are  and  must  be  for  the 
best.     This  is  a  short  argument,  it  is  true,  but  it  is 


OPTIMISM.  155 

of  a  nature  to  excite  thought  and  perhaps  to  carry- 
weight  and  conviction.  During  a  long  life  I  have 
not  been  exempt  from  the  trials  which  are  the  com- 
mon allotment  of  men  ;  but  I  became  early  a  disci- 
ple in  the  optimistic  school;  and  the  bitter  tears  I 
have  sometimes  shed  have  not  prevented  me  from 
saying  most  heartily  and  sincerely,  all  is  welL  And 
I  hope  it  will  not  be  considered  thoughtless  or  pre- 
sumptuous to  add,  that  those  who  are  not  able  to 
say  this,  and  in  whom  the  words  do  not  express  an 
inwrought  personal  conviction,  have  yet  something 
of  great  practical  value  to  learn. 

In  saying  that  all  is  for  the  best,  it  is  well  to 
consider  a  moment  how  much  is  included  in  it.  All 
truth,  all  falsehood,  all  joy,  all  sorrow,  all  kindness, 
all  enmity,  all  reward,  all  punishment,  all  glory,  all 
shame,  and  whatever  else  enters  in  to  make  up  the 
moral  constitution  of  the  universe,  when  properly 
understood  in  its  principle  and  its  results,  and  when 
properly  adjusted  each  to  the  other,  contributes  in 
one  way  or  another  to  the  universal  harmony,  and 
could  not  be  left  out  without  a  loss  to  the  universal 
and  highest  happiness.  And  when  this  great  an- 
nouncement is  fully  and  sincerely  received  on  scrip- 
tural and  philosophical  principles,  as  the  teaching 
alike  of  the  uttered  scriptural  Word  and  of  the  Ab- 
solute psychical  reason,  then  the  heart  and  the  head, 


I  tj  6  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

both  in  their  fears  of  danger  and  their  experiences 
of  grief,  find  a  pillow  on  which  they  can  rest  secure- 
ly and  rest  forever. 

3. — It  will  be  asked  is  sin  for  the  best?  In  an- 
swering this  question  we  are  first  required  to  answer 
another  which  naturally  precedes  it,  namely, — What 
is  the  best  constitution  of  the  universe  ?  Is  it  one 
which  excludes*  the  possibility  of  all  moral  and  re- 
sponsible life,  or  one  which  admits  and  requires 
such  moral  responsibility  ?  If  in  answering  this 
question,  we  accept  the  great  fact  of  a  moral  and 
responsible  nature  with  all  that  is  naturally  involved 
in  it,  we  necessarily  accept  wrong  or  crime  or  sin  as 
a  possibility,  and  may  reasonably  expect  that  it  will 
sometime  have  an  existence.  The  analysis  of  the 
operations  of  the  human  mind  shows,  that  the  idea 
of  right  implies  and  necessitates  that  of  wrong  ;  that 
the  idea  of  virtue  in  like  manner  implies  and  neces- 
sitates that  of  vice  ;  so  that  it  can  always  be  said  of 
the  man  who  does  right,  that  he  might  have  done 
wrong ;  and  of  the  man  who  treads  the  path  of  vir- 
tue, that  it  was  possible  for  him  to  have  gone  in  the 
opposite  direction.  And  therefore,  if  the  existence 
of  right  implies  the  possible  existence  of  wrong,  if 
there  can  be  no  virtue  without  the  possibility  of  its 
opposite,  if  the  extinction  of  crime  in  the  sense  of 
its  being  an  impossible  thing  involves  the  destruc- 


OPTIMISM. 


157 


tion  of  all  moral  good,  then  I  think  we  cannot  hesi- 
tate in  saying,  that  those  various  evils  which  go 
under  the  name  of  wrong,  crime,  vice,  and  the  like, 
taking  into  view  their  indirect  relations  and  results, 
must  be  accepted  as  parts  of  the  universal  plan  and 
are  all  for  the  best.  So  that  sin  itself,  hateful  as  it 
is,  may  be  regarded  in  the  light  of  a  true  philosophy 
as  a  necessary  result  of  the  moral  universe,  and  as 
throwing  light  upon  the  character  of  God.  What 
idea  should  we  have  of  the  holiness  of  God,  himself, 
if  sin  were  an  impossibility  and  therefore  a  thing 
unknowable  ;  and  if  we  could  not  aid  our  concep- 
tions by  saying  not  merely  that  God  is  holy,  but 
that  in  being  holy  He  hates  sin  ? 

4. — And  looking  at  the  matter  in  another  aspect, 
we  must  not  forget,  that  man  considered  in  relation 
to  certain  ends  which  are  before  him  and  as  reach- 
ing upward  to  such  ends,  is  a  developing  or  pro- 
gressive, and  not  a  fixed  and  stationary  being. 
And  it  is  generally  conceded  that  all  progress,  in 
reaching  its  highest  results,  involves  the  fact  of 
exercise,  practice,  struggles,  obstacles  to  be  met, 
and  obstacles  to  be  vanquished.  Such  are  the  laws 
of  being,  that  growth  and  inactivity  are  incompati- 
ble ideas.  It  is  involved  in  the  mere  fact  of  living, 
that  we  must  do  battle  in  the  great  contest  of  life. 
Christ  himself  assures  us,  that  in  the  world  we  shall 


158  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

have  tribulation,  and  the  Apostle  Paul  exhorts  us  to 
fight  the  good  fight  of  faith.  But  if  moral  evil  is 
excluded  from  the  universe,  then  all  such  views  are 
out  of  place,  and  have  no  meaning.  There  is  no 
content,  because  there  is  nothing  to  contend  with  ; 
and  there  is  no  growth,  because  there  is  none  of 
that  spiritual  wrestling,  without  which  growth  is  un- 
known. And  therefore  we  say  again,  that  Optimism 
has  a  philosophical  as  well  as  scriptural  foundation, 
and  that  in  the  conflicts  and  trials  of  life,  including 
moral  evils  and  moral  conflicts,  all  is  for  the  best. 

5. — But  supposing,  says  one,  that  moral  evil,  in 
the  contest  which  its  existence  necessarily  implies, 
should  gain  the  victory,  what  is  our  situation  then ; 
and  what  becomes  of  the  optimistic  utterance. 
And  here  it  may  be  said,  if  we  take  the  question  in 
the  widest  sense,  that  it  involves  what  may  be  called 
an  impossible  supposition.  It  is  the  affirmation  of 
all  thought  and  all  philosophy,  the  doctrine  of  all 
the  suggested  or  inspirational  Scriptures  of  all  ages 
and  all  nations,  the  dying  word  of  those  who  drink 
hemlock,  and  perish  in  the  flames,  and  bleed  upon 
the  cross,  the  martyred  teachers  and  guides  of  hu- 
manity, that  goodness  taken  in  its  widest  sense, 
bears  in  its  bosom  the  seed  of  immortality  and  can 
never  be   overthrown ;  that   it   conquers  now,    and 


OP  TIM  ISM. 


159 


conquers  forever.     Let  that  word  stand  ;  humanity 
will  never  part  with  it. 

6. — But  when  we  look  at  the  contest,  not  in  its 
general  aspect,  but  as  we  find  it  commenced  and 
progressing  in  individual  cases,  we  must  confess  that 
the  battle  sometimes  goes  against  us.  But  we  are 
at  liberty  to  add  that  it  does  so  for  a  good  reason  ; 
that  it  does  so  because  we  violate  the  laws  of  victory, 
and  therefore  we  can  still  hold  to  the  great  truth  we 
are  considering.  And  the  reason  to  which  we  refer 
is  the  fact,  never  to  be  forgotten,  that  God  is  a  real- 
ity and  holds  a  position  which  can  never  be  set 
aside.  Not  an  impersonal  God,  who  is  rhetorically 
great  but  practically  nothing.  Not  a  fatalistic  God 
— a  God  who  is  bound  in  chains  and  fetters;  nor  an 
heathen  idol  God,  who  has  as  little  intelligence  and 
power  as  the  wood  and  stone  of  which  he  is  fash- 
ioned ;  but  a  God,  who  clothes  his  infinitude  with  a 
personal  oversight  and  responsibility,  who  takes  an 
interest  in  all  the  things  He  has  made  and  especially 
in  his  own  children,  whom  He  is  fashioning  by  the 
process  of  trial  into  the  perfection  and  brightness  of 
his  own  image.  He  has  all  strength,  and  He  is  al- 
ways ready  to  render  all  needed  assistance.  But 
while  standing  at  our  side  and  always  ready  with 
his  aid,  He  will  not  and  cannot  violate  and  des 
troy  our  position  as  his  intelligent  and  responsible 


j5q  absolute  religion. 

children,  by  violating  our  moral  freedom.  If  we  re- 
ject his  aid  it  necessarily  follows  that  in  some  cases, 
and  I  think  in  all,  sin  will  have  dominion  over  us ; 
but  on  the  other  hand  if  we  accept  it  and  trust  in  it, 
though  our  strength  may  be  small,  we  never  fail  to 
conquer.  And  in  either  case,  whether  we  rise  with 
God  or  fall  without  Him,  when  we  look  carefully  at 
the  principles  involved,  we  can  still  say,  it  is  all  for 
the  best. 

And  thus  it  is  that  in  these  and  all  other  things 
the  Absolute  Religion,  in  aid  of  Revealed  Religion, 
stands  ready,  by  processes  of  intelligent  thought  and 
reason,  to  show  that  all  the  constituents  of  the 
moral  universe,  when  all  facts,  relations  and  issues 
are  reached,  hold  their  position,  not  as  an  error  or 
an  accident,  but  as  the  out-giving  of  the  highest 
wisdom,  and  as  necessary  elements  in  a  system 
which  is  stamped  with  perfection. 

7# — But  the  question  is  sometimes  asked,  wheth- 
er this  view  does  not  make  God  the  author  of 
sin ;  in  other  words,  whether  all  moral  evils  of 
whatever  nature  may  not  be  laid  directly  and  ex- 
clusively to  his  account  ?  The  fact  supposed  to  be 
involved  in  such  inquiries,  is  as  far  as  possible  from 
the  truth.  It  is  true  that  God  cannot  establish  a 
moral  universe  in  which  the  highest  and  most  glori- 
ous results  may  be  realized  without  admitting  the 


OPTIMISM.  l6l 

possibility  of  sin.  But  it  is  also  true,  both  on  philo- 
sophic and  scriptural  principles,  and  also  as  shown 
by  the  history  of  his  dealings  with  the  world,  that 
God  takes  all  possible  measures  short  of  a  violation 
of  man's  freedom,  which  cannot  be  violated  without 
man's  ceasing  to  be  a  man,  to  instruct  man,  to  pro- 
tect him  against  evils  and  to  guide  him  to  truth  and 
to  good.  So  far  from  being  the  author  of  sin,  God 
shows  himself  both  by  his  nature  and  his  works  to 
be  the  enemy  of  sin;  and  also  looking  at  the  subject 
in  another  aspect,  that  he  is  the  friend  of  all  good 
or  holiness,  and  the  assertion  that  God  is  the  au- 
thor of  sin  in  the  sense  in  which  the  suggestion  is 
evidently  made,  is  not  only  an  error  but  a  wrong,  a 
contempt  of  the  highest  goodness  as  well  as  a  dis- 
honor to  unchangeable  truth. 

8. — The  greatest  of  all  moral  teachers  and  phil- 
osophers, I  mean  Christ  himself,  in  a  few  wonderful 
words,  has  announced  the  great  truth  which  forms 
the  subject  of  this  chapter.  "  //  must  needs  be"  he 
says,  "  that  offences  come ;  but  woe  unto  that  man 
by  whom  the  offence  cometh."  In  other  words,  the 
principles  of  the  moral  universe,  being  a  "  needs  be" 
are  necessities.  They  exist,  not  by  an  arbitrary 
command  which  would  be  consistent  with  the  idea 
that  there  was  a  time  when  they  had  no  existence, 
but  because  the  "  needs  be  "  was  in  them ;  and  exist 


1 62  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

therefore  beyond  time  and  beyond  space,  and  with 
eternity  for  their  changeless  home.  There  is  no 
wisdom  back  of  them  or  above  them  which  can  orig- 
inate or  alter  and  improve,  or  make  them  in  any 
way  otherwise  than  they  are.  And  yet  it  is  further 
implied  in  this  remarkable  passage,  that  these  ne- 
cessities by  which  sin  comes  into  the  world,  in  point 
of  fact  and  in  the  view  of  those  who  have  a  true 
interior  insight,  will  be  found  consistent  with  per- 
sonal responsibility  and  with  the  punishment  of  evil- 
doers. 

Nevertheless  we  are  willing  to  admit  that  on 
this  great  subject  there  may  be  and  there  probably 
are  difficulties  which  a  finite  mind  cannot  easily 
solve.  And  to  a  mind  that  is  in  a  right  position, 
this  admission  excites  no  surprise  and  causes  no 
sorrow,  because  it  is  one  of  those  things  which  God 
himself  cannot  remedy,  unless  He  can  unite  things 
which  are  contradictory  and  incompatible  in  their 
nature,  and  make  the  finite  identical  with  the  Infi- 
nite. 


CHAPTER   XVI. 
The  Objective  and  Subjective  in  Religion. 

I.— It  is  sometimes  thought  that  the  Objective  or 
outward  in  religion,  and  the  Subjective  or  inward, 
are  not  only  antagonistical,  but  are  mutually  exclu- 
sive and  destructive  of  each  other.  This  I  suppose 
to  be  a  mistake.  They  are  neither  destructive  of 
each  other,  nor  are  they  necessarily  antagonistical ; 
but  on  the  contrary,  are  essentially  harmonious,  al- 
though it  may  sometimes  be  true,  in  consequence 
of  diversity  of  relations,  that  they  are  antagonistical 
in  appearance. 

The  question  of  the  Objective  and  the  Sub- 
jective in  religion,  is  prominently  and,  specifically  the 
question,  stated  in  simpler  terms,  is  God  without  us 
or  within  us?  Our  answer  is,  that  God  is  every 
where  ;  but  not  in  the  same  sense,  nor  with  the 
same  efficacy,  nor  with  the  same  results.  And  these 
differences  depend  not  merely  upon  the  facts  of  the 
divine  nature,  but  partly  upon  other  related  facts, 
incidents  and  experiences.     Accordingly  it   may  be 


t64  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

said  as  a  truth,  that  irreligion  necessitates  objectiv- 
ity ;  because,  from  the  very  fact  of  being  what  it  is, 
it  closes  the  heart  and  excludes  the  divine  entrance. 
The  irreligious  or  Adamic  man,  or  man  under  the 
influence  of  inordinate  self-hood,  and  with  the  spir- 
itual eye  almost  closed  with  the  Adamic  incrusta- 
tions, can  see  only  the  objective  or  outward  God. 
But  under  the  more  favorable  influences  of  Christi- 
anity and  with  a  wider  and  truer  vision  for  which  he 
ought  to  be  grateful,  he  sees  Him  under  a  human 
form,  elevated  to  the  position  of  a  throne  and  sway- 
ing a  sceptre.  But  He  sits  there  nevertheless,  what- 
ever the  degree  of  his  elevation  or  glory,  as  an  ob- 
jective or  outward  God.  But  God  as  thus  present- 
ed, is  not  to  be  regarded  as  wanting  in  reality ;  nor 
as  a  reality  not  accordant  with  the  facts  of  a  sound 
philosophy.  The  true  God  is  universal ;  but  the 
Adamic  eye,  or  the  eye  which  sees  only  from  the 
stand-point  of  its  own  personal  interests,  can  see  God 
only  under  the  law  of  its  own  perceptivity ;  and  lo- 
cates Him  and  circumscribes  Him  with  the  limita- 
tions, which  are  reflected  from  its  own  nature.  And 
thus  it  is  that  the  sinner  sees  God  outwardly,  be- 
cause the  fact  of  sinfulness  is  a  decree  of  banishment, 
and  it  is  a  logical  sequence  of  such  a  sight,  that  he 
not  only  sees,  but  fears  and  trembles. 

2. — It  should  be  remembered  however,  that  God 


OBJECTIVE  AND  SUBJECTIVE  IN  RELIGION.  165 

objective  is  not  a  different  God,  but  differently  seen  ; 
not  located  and  limited  in  his  distant  place  by  his 
essential  nature,  but  because  He  will  not  enter  the 
selfish  heart;  and  the  selfish  heart,  therefore,  can 
only  see  Him  in  the  distance.  But  it  is  better,  far 
better,  that  He  should  thus  be  seen,  than  not  seen 
at  all.  It  is  the  beginning  of  a  new  thought  ;  it  is 
the  incipiency  of  searching  and  often  terrible  convic- 
tions ;  it  is  the  opening  and  revelation  in  the  soul  of 
that  which  makes  an  unbelieving  Felix  tremble. 

3. — Such  is  the  God  of  the  sinner,  a  God  true  to 
the  relations  under  which  the  sinner  sees  him  ;  seen 
at  a  distance,  because  He  is  distant ;  seen  in  exclu- 
sion, because  He  is  excluded  ;  seen  in  anger,  because 
it  is  right  and  just  that  He  should  be  angry.  But 
under  the  appliances  of  new  truths  and  such  influ- 
ences as  God  can  exercise  consistently  with  the  sin- 
ner's freedom,  and  especially  in  connection  with  his 
mediatorial  manifestations,  He  begins  to  present 
himself  in  accordance  with  the  sinner's  altered  men- 
tal position  and  wants,  in  the  attributes  of  forgive- 
ness, mercy  and  love.  He  expands  to  the  mental 
vision  just  in  proportion  as  the  mental  vision  en- 
larges itself  to  perceive.  And  in  this  expansion  by 
the  laws  of  spiritual  insight,  He  comes  nearer  and 
nearer,  till  at  last  instead  of  being  excluded  and 
kept  at  a  distance,  He  begins  to  enter  and  take  up 


!  66  AB  SOL  U  TE '  RE  LIGION. 

his  abode  in  the  soul  itself,  and  to  find  his  locality, 
not  as  a  God  afar  off,  but  as  a  real  dweller  in  the 
sacred  and  spiritual  home  of  holy  thoughts  and  holy 
dispositions.  It  is  in  harmony  with  the  doctrine  of 
these  statements,  that  the  late  Dr.  Payson,  of  Maine, 
in  speaking  of  his  personal  experience,  says,  "  the 
Sun  of  Righteousness  has  been  gradually  drawing 
nearer  and  nearer,  appearing  larger  and  brighter  as 
He  approached.''  And  when  God  has  thus  changed 
his  position  from  God  outward  in  the  heavens  to 
God  inward  in  the  Spirit,  we  have  a  rational  and  to 
some  extent  satisfactory  explanation  of  the  expres- 
sion '  God  subjective '  / — in  other  words,  a  God  inte- 
rior, a  God  in  psychical  possession,  a  God  dwelling 
in  the  soul. 

There  is  therefore,  a  foundation  for  the  terms 
Objective  and  Subjective  in  religion,  although  they 
sound  somewhat  crude  and  inharmonious  to  an 
Anglo-Saxon  ear;  and  they  are  terms  which  have  a 
real  and  substantial  significancy ;  word-symbols  of 
great  and  essential  religious  facts,  though  not  facts 
which  are  realized  at  the  same  period  in  the  mind's 
history ;  and  which  are  harmonized  with  each  other 
by  the  adjustment  of  additional  facts  and  additional 
relations. 

4. — There  is  an  incidental  topic  which  seems  to 
merit   a  brief  notice.     The   statement  is   found    in 


OBJECTIVE  AND  SUBJECTIVE  IN  RELIGION,   ify 

certain    philosophical    speculations,    though    some- 
times appearing  merely  in  the  form  of  a  suggestion, 
that  the  subjective  experience,  when  carried  to  its 
highest  results,  requires  and  necessitates  the  u  iden- 
tification of  the  subject  and  object,  of  the  worship- 
per and    the   worshipped ;  "    in    other   words,   that 
man   in  becoming  sanctified,  or  as  it   is   sometimes 
expressed    "divinized"    through   the   presence    and 
reigning  power  of  the   Holy  Ghost,  ceases    to   be 
man.     But  this  view,  which  would    readily  be   ac- 
cepted in  the   doctrines  of  Pantheism,  has  the  as- 
pect, to  say  the  least,  of  being  a  hasty  and  erroneous 
generalization  ;  leading  to  injurious  and  fatal  results. 
It  is  the    confounding   of  identity  of  nature  with 
identity  of  forms,   attributes   and    relations.      The 
sunbeam  is  not  the  same  with  the  sun ;  the  drop  of 
water- is  not  the  same  with  the  ocean  ;  the  morning 
zephyr  is  not  the  same  thing  with  the  wild,  sweep- 
ing whirlwind.     Everywhere,   in  all  the   realms   of 
nature,  we  find  the  same  essentiality  of  nature,  com- 
bined with  differences  of  manifestation  and  relations, 
which  divide   that  essential  oneness,   that  divinely 
central  and   inseparable  brotherhood,  into    distinct 
and  beautiful  and  permanent  individualisms.     Paul 
did  not  cease  to  be  Paul,  because  he  asserted   and 
asserted  truly,  that  Christ  lived  in  him.     The  pos- 
session of  a  divine  nature,  which  is  the  duty  and  the 


l6$  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

privilege  of  every  one,  does  not  make  him  a  Deity ; 
which,  notwithstanding  the  ingenious  speculations 
of  the  ancient  Hindoos,  or  of  the  Neo-Platonic 
Alexandrine  schools,  or  of  their  more  modern  fol- 
lowers, seems  to  the  truly  Christian  mind,  not  only 
adverse  to  the  Scriptures,  but  both  a  philosophical 
and  physical  impossibility.  Let  it  be  understood 
and  remembered,  that  diversity  of  life  is  as  much  a 
truth  of  the  universe  as  essentiality  of  life ;  and 
angels,  and  all  holy  beings  who  may  reach  that  high 
stature  and  glory  of  existence,  will  be  angels  still. 
Absorption  into  God,  as  a  permanent  and  universal 
result,  would  be  the  cessation  and  death  of  God 
himself;  whose  very  element  and  essentiality  of  life, 
is  its  tendency  to  out-flowing  and  manifested  com- 
munication. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

Unities  and  Diversities, 

I. — It  is  not  to  be  supposed,  that  all  diversities 
are  disunities.  On  the  contrary,  unity  in  diversity, 
a  central  and  life-giving  principle  with  variations  in 
manifestation,  is  a  great  philosophical  announce- 
ment ;  and  justly  regarded  as  one  among  the  most 
interesting  which  have  been  propounded  for  con- 
sideration. There  are  many  rivers,  but  they  flow  to 
one  ocean ;  many  planets,  but  one  central  sun  ; 
many  nerves,  but  having  their  source  in  the  central 
brain  ;  many  pulsations,  but  they  come  from  one 
heart.  Everywhere,  but  oftentimes  with  compara- 
tive subordinations  and  in  separate  cycles  of  exist- 
ence and  movement,  we  find  this  great  fact  of  a 
central  unity,  with  its  out-going  but  correlated  di- 
versities. Writers  on  aesthetics,  for  instance,  teach 
us,  that  amid  all  the  varieties  of  outward  form  and 
beauty,  which  manifest  themselves  in  the  different 
schools  of  architecture  and  painting,  there  are  cer- 
tain common  principles  which  underlie  them  all ; 
8 


iy0  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

and  which  secures  in  different  and  distant  ages  and 
countries,  the  permanency  of  their  power  over  the 
human  mind.  Applying  the  great  principle  before 
us  to  our  moral  and  religious  nature,  and  with  the 
object  of  briefly  noticing  its  connection  with  a  living 
Christianity,  and  also  some  of  its  bearings  on  na- 
tions, we  proceed  now  to  remark,  that  there  may  be 
diversities  which  characterize  the  intellectual  action, 
and  which  attach  especially  to  that  part  of  the 
mind ;  but  which,  nevertheless,  will  be  found  to 
be  consistent  with  a  high  degree  of  unity  in  the 
more  interior  and  affectional  nature.  In  other 
words,  there  may  be  differences  and  conflicts  of  the 
intellect  combined  Avith  unity  of  the  heart. 

2. — The  statement  just  made  seems  to  us  to 
be  justified  by  a  correct  knowledge  of  our  mental 
constitution.  It  is  generally  conceded,  that  our 
comparative  views  or  knowledge  of  things,  are  deter- 
mined in  part  by  the  comparative  strength  of  our 
intellectual  powers ;  and  in  part  also  by  the  stand 
point  or  intellectual  position,  in  which  we  happen 
to  be  when  those  powers  are  exercised.  In  regard 
to  most  objects  of  knowledge,  especially  objects  of 
outward  knowledge,  it  is  well  understood  that  every 
one,  saying  nothing  of  the  amount  or  specific  char- 
acter of  his  perceptive  power,  holds  a  position  differ- 
ent in  some  respects  from  every  other  person  ;  and 


UNITIES  AND  DIVERSITIES.  171 

that  this  circumstance  alone,  without  taking  the 
interior  causes  of  differences  into  account,  must 
necessarily  lay  the  foundation  of  very  different  re- 
sults. If  two  men,  for  instance,  placed  in  quite 
different  positions,  are  looking  at  a  building  of  va- 
ried architectural  proportions  and  beauty,  it  is 
found  impossible  for  them,  even  if  they  have  the 
same  powers  of  perception,  to  take  the  same  view. 
To  each  of  the  two,  the  view  which  he  takes  is  a 
true  one,  considered  relatively  to  the  extent  of  his 
own  faculties  and  the  position  from  which  he  exer- 
cises them  ;  but  it  is  more  or  less  different  from 
that  of  the  other.  Such  is  the  intellectual  law  in 
the  case. 

3. — Upon  this  general  basis  of  the  laws  of  knowl- 
edge, without  going  into  more  specific  statements 
and  limitations,  which  a  full  discussion  might  call 
for,  we  propose  to  make  a  few  practical  remarks. 
And  the  first  is,  that  there  is  a  philosophical  as  well 
as  a  Scriptural  foundation  for  the  great  idea,  which 
awaits  a  wider  development  than  it  has  hitherto 
known  of  Christian  unity.  It  is  important  to  us  as 
Christians,  aiming  at  the  highest  results  of  Chris- 
tianity, to  understand  and  remember,  that  the  prin- 
ciple, which  applies  in  so  many  other  cases,  has  a 
specific  application  to  ourselves  ;  and  that  intellect- 
ual differences,  in  being  to  some  extent  a  necessity, 


I72  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

do  not  and  cannot  in  themselves  considered,  and  to 
the  extent  at  least  of  their  necessary  existence,  fur- 
nish a  justifiable  obstacle  to  love.  Indeed,  looking 
at  the  matter  philosophically,  have  we  not  some  rea- 
son for  saying  that  differences  are  the  foundation 
of  love  ?  If  we  were  all  formed  alike,  and  looked 
alike  and  were  alike  in  all  other  respects,  the  many 
would  be  merged  in  one  ;  everything  would  be  iden- 
tical ;  and  the  fact  of  loving  would  cease  because 
there  would  be  no  opportunity  of  loving.  But  with- 
out pressing  this  point,  let  us*  remember  that  God, 
in  the  most  true  and  important  sense,  loves  all  be- 
ings and  seeks  the  good  of  all,  notwithstanding  the 
amazing  diversities  which  exist.  And  if  God  thus 
throws  the  arms  of  his  affections  around  those,  who 
are  constituted  with  intellectual  differences  and  who, 
by  the  necessities  of  their  position,  exercise  these 
differences  in  different  ways  and  with  different  re- 
sults, then  those,  who  are  born  into  the  true  and 
full  life  of  God,  and  who  love  as  God  loves,  may  be 
expected  to  have  power  to  surmount  these  differen- 
ces also,  and  to  harmonize  the  conflicts  and  antag- 
onisms of  thought  by  means  of  the  more  interior 
unities  of  affection.  And  hence  it  is,  that  the  Apos- 
tle Paul,  in  connection  with  that  unity  of  heart 
which  binds  the  soul  to  Christ  and  which  consolidates 
the  great  Christian  brotherhood  into  the  same  unity 


UNITIES  AND  DIVERSITIES.  773 

of  life,  argues  with  a  sublimity  of  thought  as  sound 
in  philosophy  as  it  is  true  in  religion,  that  the  out- 
ward distinctions  of  bond  and  free,  of  Greek  and  Jew, 
of  male  and  female,  of  circumcision  and  uncircum- 
cision,  of  Barbarian  and  Scythian,  all  involving  more 
or  less  the  intellectual  and  incidental  differences  of 
thought  and  culture  and  practical  life,  are  merged 
and  lost  sight  of  in  that  grand  and  essential  unity. 
Gal.  iii:  28.  Coloss.  iii :  11.  And  hence  it  happened, 
after  the  great  day  of  Pentecost,  that  Parthians  and 
Medes  and  Elamites  and  Phrygians  and  Egyptians 
and  Lybians  and  Cretans  and  Arabians,  all  uttering 
the  discordancies  of  different  languages,  and  all 
modified  intellectually  by  great  differences  of  thought, 
and  by  the  training  of  their  different  situations,  were 
nevertheless  in  their  more  interior  nature  baptized 
into  one  spirit. 

And  hence  it  happens  also,  as  we  learn  from 
time  to  time,  that  modern  missionaries  in  heathen 
lands,  meeting  together  in  the  presence  of  great 
necessities  which  swell  within  them  the  tide  of  the 
soul's  Essential  Life,  find  its  increasing  waves  of 
holy  love  mounting  upward  and  upward,  and  thus 
overflowing  and  sweeping  away  the  divisive  im- 
pulses of  the  intellect  and  the  conventional  lines  of 
sectarian  separation. 

4. — Again,   the   doctrine    of  unity    in    diversity, 


!74       %  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

when  understood  in  the  principles  which  lie  at  its 
foundation,   helps   us  in   the   matter  of  forgiveness 
and   of  love   to   our   enemies.      When    persons    are 
pressed  on  the  subject  of  an  inward  holy  life,  and 
the  example  of  the  Elder  Brother  is  set  before  them 
as  an  example  to  be  followed  in   all  respects,  they 
frequently  stumble  at  the  requisition  to  love  their 
enemies,  and  to   do  good  to  those   who  have  done 
injury  to  themselves.     But  let  them   do  what  they 
ought  to  do,  and  be  at  once  what  Christ  would  have 
them  to  be  ;  and  they  will  not  fail  to  see  the  truth 
and   beauty  of  this  great  command.     If,  under  the 
influences  of  the  living  truth,  they  boldly  and  fully 
follow  Christ   in   the   inward    regeneration,   it   may 
always  be  said  that  their  enemies  smite  them   be- 
cause  they   do   not   understand    them.      In    other 
words,  acting  from  the  sphere  of  the.  intellect,  and 
beholding  things  from  the  lower  plane  which  con- 
stitutes their  stand-point,  they  aim  their  blows  at 
the  creations  of  their  own   imagination.     In  their 
darkened  vision,  perverted  by  their  own  selfishness, 
or  by  the   discordancies  of  a  necessitated  position, 
they   mistake   ministering   angels   who   come   with 
messages   of  love,   for  powers  and  principalities  of 
evil  who  threaten  them  with  harm.     The    Roman 
soldiers  who   thrust  their  spears  at   the   "  man   of 
sorrows,"   did  not  know  the  truth  and  purity  and 


UNITIES  A  ND  DI VE  RSI  TIES.  \  j  5 

benevolence  of  Him  whose  blood  they  sought. 
And  hence  his  glorious  nature  was  both  prompted 
by  benevolence,  and,  in  recognizing  the  laws  of 
man's  mental  constitution,  harmonized  with  the 
philosophical  truth  of  things,  loyal  alike  and  un- 
changeable to  the  justice  of  truth  and  the  divinity 
of  goodness,  when  He  uttered  that  memorable  say- 
ing :  "  Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  knoiv  not  ivhat 
they  do? 

5. — And  we  may  remark  further,  looking^ at  the 
subject  in  its  political  and  national  relations,  that  we 
find  in  the  principles  which  have  been  laid  down, 
a  philosophical  foundation  for  the  great  political 
doctrine  so  long  and  warmly  contested,  of  a  tolera- 
tion of  opinions,  considered  as  a  political  and  constitu- 
tional right.  The  human  mind,  if  we  have  been 
correct  in  our  positions,  is  so  constituted  and  so 
situated  in  the  circumstances  of  its  action,  that  oft- 
entimes it  necessarily  takes  different  views.  If  it  so 
happens,  therefore,  at  any  time  and  under  any  cir- 
cumstances, that  we  cannot  make  our  neighbors 
understand  things  as  we  understand  them,  either 
through  our  incapacity  to  communicate  or  their 
incapacity  to  receive,  we  must  calmly  bear  with  it. 
They  are  not,  on  the  ground  of  such  incapacity,  to 
be  the  subjects  of  sneers,  of  sarcasm,  of  unfeeling 
rebuke,  of  imprisonments,  of  tortures,  of  social  os- 


iy6  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

tracism,  or  of  anything  inconsistent  with  the  for- 
bearance and  charity  which  such  a  state  of  things 
obviously  requires.  When  men,  therefore,  fought 
for  the  toleration  of  religious  opinions  in  the  Eng- 
lish Revolution  of  1640  and  in  the  American  Revo- 
lution of  1776,  and  in  other  memorable  historical 
periods,  they  fought  for  a  great  necessity  of  their 
nature.  And  accordingly  it  is  well  to  understand 
and  practically  insist,  that  this  great  principle  of 
toleration  is  not  merely  a  truth  of  the  sword  which 
bloody  battles  have  established,  and  which  other 
battles  might  unsettle  and  abrogate;  but  a  truth 
of  the  highest  reason,  and  of  perpetual  obligation. 

6. — And  again,  the  principle  under  consideration 
has  a  connection  with  what  has  been  called  by  a 
modern  but  expressive  term,  the  "  solidarity'  of  na- 
tions. Whatever  diversities  may  exist  among  na- 
tions politically  or  otherwise,  the  law  of  the  universe 
which  philosophers  have  denominated  Unity  in  Di- 
versity, which  lies  back  of  all  diversities,  and  which 
in  this  particular  case  touches  nations,  because  it 
touches  individuals,  requires  that  they  must  march  in 
harmony  with  the  unifying  centre.  Diversified  as 
they  may  be  by  monarchies  or  senates,  or  by  other 
civil  and  political  variations,  all  nations  have  a  "  soli- 
darity "  or  community  of  life,  because  a  nation  is  a 
unified  or  consolidated  man,  and  because  all  men  who 


UNITIES  AND  DIVERSITIES. 


177 


go  to  make  the  national  or  consolidated  existence, 
are  born  alike  in  the  image  of  God ;  and  not  only 
have  certain  inalienable  rights,  as  Jefferson's  great 
declaration  has  affirmed,  but  are  the  subjects  of  in- 
alienableobligations •,  and  arc  bound  together  by  inalien- 
able ties.  When  the  Roman  audience  loudly  ap- 
plauded the  great  sentiment,  "  Homo  sum  ;  hutndni 
nihil  a  me  alienum  puto"  their  hearts  vibrated  to  the 
pulsations  of  that  common  life,  which  under  all  its 
separations  makes  humanity  one.  Such  is  the  foun- 
dation of  the  great  law  of  solidarity,  which,  while  it 
recognizes  diversities,  subordinates  them  to  itself  as 
the  great  central  principle.  It  is  under  the  prompt- 
ings and  influence  of  this  beneficent  principle,  that 
nations,  as  if  by  a  common  impulse,  are  struggling  to 
realize  a  community  of  interests  in  all  cases  where  it 
is  possible,  and  by  all  means  which  render  it  possible  ; 
such  as  a  common  system  of  weights  and  measures,  a 
common  coinage,  a  common  postal  system,  the  ocean 
telegraph,  the  removal  of  the  passport  system,  the 
extinction  of  what  remains  of  feudalism,  the  recog- 
nition of  the  rights  of  different  races  notwithstand- 
ing the  diversities  of  color,  the  expansion  of 
nationalities  in  harmony  with  the  aspirations  of  a 
common  name  and  history,  the  extension  of  the 
ballot,  the  revision  of  the  doctrines  of  naturaliza- 
tion, international  exhibitions  of  the  arts,  the  settle- 
8* 


!^8  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

ment  of  national  difficulties  by  means  of  Congresses 
of  nations,  the  introduction  of  the  principle  of  Arbi- 
tration into  treaties,  together  with  the  hope  ulti- 
mately, of  a  permanent  international  Congress  and 
a  Court  of  nations,  and  also  of  a  universal  language. 


CHAPTER   XVIII. 

Viezu  of  the  Doctrine  of  Sacrifices. 

The  doctrine  of  the  ancient  Sacrifices  reveals  to 
us  one  of  the  forms  in  which  God  contends  against 
satan,  in  which  the  life  of  good  strives  against  the 
life  of  evil.  God's  great  redemption  plan  has  been 
to  restore  men  from  the  life  of  self,  in  which  they 
were  destroying  themselves  to  the  universal  brother- 
hood. In  their  inordinate  self-hood  they  seized 
everything  they  could  lay  their  hands  upon,  and 
held  it  all  with  the  firmest  possible  grasp ;  the  fruits 
of  the  earth,  the  herds  of  the  fields,  doves,  oxen, 
sheep,  goats,  camels.  And  they  held  everything 
they  could  thus  get,  not  for  the  good  of  the  object, 
but  for  their  own  good — not  to  communicate  but  to 
appropriate  it.  They  made  everything  a  sacrifice,  a 
holocaust,  a  great  burnt  offering  to  their  own  lusts. 
With  a  view  to  break  in  upon  the  principality  and 
dominion  of  selfishness,  God  commanded  them,  in  the 
destruction  which  they  made  and  were  determined 
to  make  of  all  fruits  and  animals,  that  they  should 


l8o  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

not  appropriate  everything  to  themselves,  but  offer 
a  part  to  God.  On  God's  part  it  was  merely  a  form 
of  proceeding.  Under  the  form  of  an  offering  to 
God,  it  was  really  an  offering  for  their  own  good. 

In  this  way  they  made  a  beginning  in  that  great 
lesson,  which  all  must  learn  if  they  would  be  saved. 
They  were  taught,  that  this  partial  sacrifice  was  the 
antetype  or  forerunner  of  something  which  was  to 
come.  They  were  yet  to  learn  the  nature  of  a  true 
sacrifice — its  extent,  its  possibility,  its  necessity.  In 
its  full  extent,  a  true  sacrifice  is  not  the  giving  up 
of  a  part  or  the  withholding  of  a  part,  but  the  sacri- 
fice of  all. 

This  is  a  thing  possible  to  be  done,  otherwise  it 
would  not  be  required  to  be  done.  Luke  14 :  26. 
God  incarnated  himself  as  man,  in  order  that  he 
might  illustrate  in  a  way  which  all  could  understand, 
the  nature,  the  extent,  and  the  possibility  of  that 
sacrifice,  which  it  is  necessary  for  man  to  make  in 
order  to  become  a  holy  man. 

The  true  Christ  sacrifice  is  a  perpetual  sacrifice. 
It  is  a  law  which  proceeds  from  God,  that  the  higher 
or  more  advanced  existences  give  up  themselves  to 
the  service  and  good  of  others  who  are  lower.  The 
death  of  Christ  on  the  cross  for  the  good  of  men  was 
not  merely  an  isolated  fact,  but  the  announcement 
and  the  verification  of  an  universal  and  permanent 


VIEW  OF  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  SACRIFICES.       jg! 

principle.  And  this  principle  is,  that  the  Christ- 
sacrifice,  which  is  holy  love  in  its  essential  and  celes- 
tial uses,  never  ceases ;  and  that  redemption  never 
ends. 

The  divine  brotherhood  and  sisterhood  of  Christ 
scattered  up  and  down  in  the  earth,  and  who  in  these 
last  days  are  being  gathered  together  out  of  all 
tongues  and  tribes  and  kindreds  of  men,  and  out  of 
all  separate  forms  and  beliefs,  still  suffer  to  some  ex- 
tent in  the  garden  of  Gethsemane  or  upon  the  Cross. 
The  inheritors  of  Christ's  nature,  it  is  a  matter  of 
course  that  they  are  and  must  be,  the  inheritors  of 
Christ's  sufferings,  so  far  as  they  come  in  contact 
with  evil,  and  so  far  as  in  the  prosecution  of  this 
conflict,  they  are  called  upon  to  labor  and  endure. 
The  Apostle  Paul,  in  speaking  of  himself,  uses  these 
expressions,  "  Who  now  rejoice  in  my  sufferings  for 
you,  and  fill  up  that  which  is  behind  of  the  suffer- 
ings of  Christ  in  my  flesh  for  his  body's  sake  which 
is  the  church."  Coloss.  I  :  24.  The  Apostle  Peter,  in 
his  first  general  Epistle,  calls  upon  the  followers  of 
Christ  to  "  rejoice,  inasmuch  as  they  are  partakers 
of  Christ's  sufferings." 

The  Christ-spirit  is  always  antagonistic  to  the 
unprogressive  and  selfish  spirit,  and  therefore  always 
labors,  always  endures,  always  suffers,  yet  always  re- 
joices, always  triumphs.     Its  triumph  is  an  eternal 


1 82  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

triumph,  because  holy  love  is  infinite  in  its  resources, 
and  selfishness  is  not ; — at  the  same  time  it  must  be 
said,  that  the  contest  in  which  it  is  engaged  is  a 
never-ending  contest  ;  because  in  a  moral  universe, 
which  is  also  necessarily  a  free  universe,  the  series  of 
the  second  or  perfected  births,  in  which  the  imperfect 
and  evil  give  place  to  the  good  and  perfect,  consid- 
ered as  a  part  of  the  divine  order,  and  as  a  necessary 
step  in  progressional  development,  is  as  much  a  per- 
manent fact  and  truth  as  the  truth  of  the  divine  ex- 
istence. 

When  we  reach  the  true  interior  sense  of  the 
Scriptures,  we  get  at  true  unchangeable  principles. 
Christ  saves  us  by  his  blood ;  his  blood  is  his  life, 
and  he  who  gives  up  his  life  gives  all.  And  it  is 
thus  that  we  can  understand  the  doctrine  of  grace, 
in  distinction  from  the  doctrine  of  merit  by  works. 
We  are  saved  by  Christ,  in  other  words  wTe  are  saved 
by  grace  or  love,  which  is  Christ's  positive  or  essen- 
tial nature,  and  this  not  of  ourselves,  it  is  the  gift 
of  God.    The  merit  is  in  Love — and  not  in  ourselves. 

But  the  question  still  remains, — how  did  Christ's 
sacrifice  save  sinners?  The  common  answer  is,  that 
he  magnified  the  law  and  made  it  honorable.  And 
what  is  the  law?  In  general  and  somewhat  abstract 
terms  it  is,  that  we  shall  love  God  with  all  our 
heart ;  and   our  neighbor   as   ourselves.      In    other 


VIE IV  OF  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  SACRIFICES.       183 

words  we  are  to  do  good ;  the  higher  are  to  watch 
over  the  lower  ;  the  strong  are  to  sustain  the  weak ; 
those  who  have  knowledge  are  to  enlighten  the  ig- 
norant ;  we  must  and  shall  bestow  upon  others  in 
proportion  as  we  receive.  This  was  the  law  which 
Christ  divinely  illustrated  and  magnified.  He  not 
only  announced  the  law  as  Moses  had  done  before  ; 
but  more  than  Moses  did,  he  fulfilled  it.  He  gave 
up  his  life  from  an  earnest  and  sincere  desire  to  do 
good  to  all  because  he  himself  was  Love.  Truly  the 
great  Law  of  Love  was  honored. 

9. — The  universe,  so  far  as  it  exhibits  itself  in 
the  personalities  and  forms  of  things,  in  distinction 
from  the  Esse  or  essential  being  of  things,  is  not  a 
completion  but  a  development; — an  infinite  pro- 
gression. It  goes  on  continually  from  one  step  or 
plane  of  advancement  to  another.  If  it  should  stop 
in  its  progress  it  would  necessarily  fall  into  extinc- 
tion. In  ceasing  to  progress,  it  would  become  lim- 
ited ;  it  would  have  a  boundary  of  existence  ;  it 
would  no  longer  be  exhaustless  in  its  resources  ;  and 
therefore,  as  it  would  be  a  necessity  that  its  life 
would  feed  upon  itself,  it  would  rapidly  waste  its 
possessions.  Progress,  therefore,  continued  progress 
may  be  regarded  as  a  necessity.  To  stand  still  is  to 
perish. 

10. — And  further  it  seems  to  be  evident  and  is 


!g4  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

generally  conceded,  that  progress  involves  the  idea 
both  of  successions  in  time  and  of  successions  in  de- 
gree ;  one  thing  going  before  and  another  coming 
after ;  one  being  below  and  another,  which  is  the 
antecedent  in  time,  being  higher,  sphere  above 
sphere,  and  these  spheres  again  having  their  distinct 
higher  and  lower  circles  or  mansions;  human  na- 
tures,  spiritual  or  angelic  natures,  seraphic  or  super- 
angelic  natures ;  existences  of  names  unknown  with 
their  appropriate  surroundings,  progressively  and 
endlessly  developing  in  the  direction  of  the  Infinite, 
and  yet  never  reaching  and  never  becoming  identical 
with  the  Infinite. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

Growth  of  the  Idea  of  God. 

I. — It  is  difficult  to  exaggerate  the  importance 
which  is  to  be  attached  to  a  correct  idea  of  God, 
considered  as  the  embodiment  and  the  personality 
of  the  essential  living  element.  If  our  views  on 
other  points  should  be  found  to  be  correct  but 
should  prove  incorrect  here,  the  error  would  be 
likely  to  vitiate  and  weaken  everything  else. 

2. — And  the  reason  is,  that  men  will  almost  nec- 
essarily fashion  themselves,  in  their  principles  and 
in  their  practice,  into  the  image  of  God,  as  that  im- 
age exists  in  their  minds.  Accordingly  in  adopting 
a  false  conception  of  God,  if  they  thus  substitute  to 
themselves  as  an  object  of  love  and  imitation,  an 
unholy  or  satanic  being  instead  of  the  true  God,  it 
will  be  found,  that  in  their  highest  aspirations  and 
efforts,  they  will  only  aim  and  labor  to  make  them- 
selves evil  and  satanic,  instead  of  aspiring  to  a  truly 
holy  or  divine  nature.  If  for  instance,  the  God  of  a 
people    is    Moloch,— a    conception    of   God    which 


r  86  ABSOL  UTE  RELIGION. 

authorizes  and  requires  extreme  cruelty — it  will  be 
found  that  the  people,  assimilating  themselves  to 
their  conception  of  what  is  divine,  will  adopt  and 
perpetuate  the  infamous  cruelties,  whatever  they 
may  be  which  their  god  approves. 

The  account  of  systems  of  worship,  and  of  the 
various  and  numerous  gods,  which  men  have  adored 
in  various  ages  of  the  world  and  in  different  places, 
constitute  a  deeply  interesting  but  most  painful 
chapter  in  human  history.  The  early  portions  of 
biblical  history  abound  in  facts  and  allusions  to 
which  we  now  refer.  The  Scriptures  make  frequent 
mention  of  the  idolatrous  worship  of  the  nations, 
that  originally  inhabited  Palestine  and  the  countries 
in  its  vicinity.  Moloch  was  a  god  of  the  Canaanites 
and  the  Phsenicians.  References  are  made  to  the 
worship  of  this  cruel  deity  in  Jeremiah,  7;  31,  32; 
19:  6-14;  in  Isaiah  30:  33,  and  also  in  the  second 
book  of  Kings,  23  :  10.  Baal  also,  so  often  mention- 
ed in  the  Bible,  was  one  of  the  deities  of  the 
Phaenicians  and  was  worshipped  especially  at  Tyre^ 
Human  sacrifices  were  sometimes  offered  to  this 
god  ;  but  less  frequently  than  to  Moloch.  Baal- 
Peor  was  a  god  or  goddess  of  the  Moabites.  An- 
other of  the  Moabitish  deities  is  mentioned  in  the 
Scriptures  under  the  name  of  Chemosh,  Numb.  21  : 
29,  Jer.  48:  7,  13.     The  calf  which  is  mentioned  in 


GROWTH  OF  THE  IDEA   OF  GOD.  \%j 

Exodus  32  :  4,  5,  and  the  two  calves  erected  by  Jer- 
oboam in  the  cities  of  Dan  and  Bethel,  were  evidently 
made  in  imitation  of  the  Egyptian  deities,  the  Apis 
worshipped  at  Memphis  and  the  Muevis  at  Heliop- 
olis.     In   some   parts    of  Egypt,  the  region  in    the 
neighborhood  of  the  ancient  Sycopolis,  the  wolf  was 
an  object  of  worship.     The  northern  nations  of  Eu- 
rope, those  in  particular  inhabiting  the   region   of, 
the  modern  Denmark  and  Sweden,  formed  their  idea 
of  God   by   the   deification   of  the  warrior.     Their 
highest  ideal  of  man  was  the  man  of  violence  and  of 
blood  ;  and  the  being,  that  was  conceived  by  them 
as  filling  most  completely  this  ideal,  by  violence  and 
bloodshed,   was   their  God.     His   name   was   Odin. 
His  residence  was  in  the  city  of  Misgard.     His  pal- 
ace was  Valhalla.     Odin    was   the    god    of  battles. 
The  souls  of  heroes  who  had  fallen  in  battle,  ascend- 
ed to  the  highest  places  in  the  celestial  city ; — re- 
newing around  the   halls   of  Valhalla  the  pleasures 
of  mimic  war,  and  drinking  the  Scandinavian  nectar, 
from  vessels  formed  from  the  skulls  of  their  enemies. 
The  adventures  of  Odin  are  found  in  the  Odda  and 
Voluopa.     The  sword  of  Odin  and   the  great  ham- 
mer of  Thor,  may  be  accepted   as  the   appropriate 
symbols  of  the  early  northern  deity; — the  creation 
of    imbrutcd   intellects    and   ferocious    hearts,  and 
which  reacted  upon  its  own  source,and  in  its  turn 


1 88  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

consolidated  and  established  revenge  and  inhuman- 
ity. 

The  question  now  returns,  what  is  God  ?  What 
is  the  idea  which  we  may  properly  and  truly  attach 
to  Him  ?  And  we  remark  in  the  first  place,  that 
the  God  whom  the  holy  heart  loves  is  not  a  limited 
or  human  form, — such  as  the  human  mind  in  its 
weakness  is  apt  to  frame  and  adopt  ; — a  form  seated 
somewhere  high  in  the  heavens,  occupying  some  ele- 
vated chair  of  state,  and  holding  in  his  hand  the 
sceptre  or  sword  of  authority.  This  undoubtedly,  is 
an  improvement  of  that  low  and  demoralizing  belief, 
which  finds  him  embodied  in  the  lowest  of  the  brute 
animals,  or  which  locates  him  in  an  idol  made  of 
wood  or  stone ;  although  it  is  still  a  conception  of 
God,  which  differs  from  this  very  low  one,  more  in 
degree  than  in  nature.  Such  a  limited  and  formal 
conception  of  God — no  matter  how  dignified  and 
venerable  the  mental  image  under  which  he  is  rep- 
resented— is  at  variance  with  the  letter  and  the 
spirit  of  the  Bible;  and  compared  with  the  true  con- 
ception of  the  Infinite  Mind,  is  low,  materialistic,  and 
unsatisfying. 

3. — The  God  whom  the  holy  soul  loves,  is  not 
the  mere  abstract  idea  of  God.  For  although  we 
may  and  do  form  such  an  abstract  idea,  yet  it  should 
be  remembered,  that  the  object   for  which  the  idea 


GROWTH  OF  THE  IDEA   OF  GOD.  189 

stands,  is  not  a  mere  abstraction  like  the  idea  which 
represents  it,  but  is  something  positive  and  real. 
Nor  can  we  in  consequence  of  our  limited  and  finite 
nature,  love  God  even  as  an  infinite  positive  Being, 
unless  we  at  the  same  time  make  him  present  in  his 
works,  and  love  him  and  worship  him  in  his  works. 

The  true  God  is  God  present,  living,  operating  or 
in  a  word  incarnate,  in  the  universe  of  things;  not 
identical  with  it,  but  wrapping  the  universality  of 
created  existences  about  Him  as  the  clothing  of  his 
life,  and  embodying  himself  most  distinctly  and  fully, 
in  that  which  has  the  greatest  receptivity  of  the 
Divine ;  and  therefore  becoming  more  and  more 
fully  incarnated  in  man,  in  proportion  as  he  pro- 
gresses in  the  divine  life,  and  can  say,  Christ  is 
within  mc. 

Now  with  such  a  God  and  thus  received,  it  is 
easy  to  see,  what  a  change  must  soon  take  place  in 
the  affairs  of  the  world.  If  man  could  in  any  way 
be  led  fully  to  believe,  that  his  brother  man-is  a  man- 
ifestation of  God,  that  the  Divine  is  in  him  and 
hovers  over  him  and  around  him, — always  to  some 
extent  and  always  endeavoring  to  incarnate  itself 
mere  and  more, — would  it  be  possible  for  him  to  treat 
his  fellow-man  as  he  has  done;  to  cast  him  into 
dungeons,  to  tear  him  with  pincers,  to  burn  him  in 
the  flames,  to  smite  him  and   crush   him   in   bloody 


190 


ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 


wars  ?  Would  it  be  in  his  thought  and  his  nature, 
thus  to  smite  and  destroy  man,  as  the  history  of  the 
world  shows  that  he  has  done,  if  he  could  be  led  to 
the  truth  of  the  divine  locality,  and  understood,  that 
God  could  and  would  not  be  separated  from  man  ? 
Truly  recognizing  God  as  existent  in  humanity, 
would  it  be  possible  for  him  to  hold  his  brother  man 
in  slavery  or  to  maltreat  him  and  injure  him  in  any 
way  whatever?  And  reverencing  God  also  in  wo- 
man, could  he  make  her  the  slave  of  all  servile 
drudgeries,  brutalizing  her  body  through  the  brutal- 
ization  of  the  intellect  and  the  heart,  and  through 
long  ages,  as  he  has  done,  causing  her  to  droop  her 
head  in  sadness  and  to  shed  tears  of  blood  ?  It  is 
obvious  what  great  and  glorious  results  would  fol- 
low from  the  adoption  of  a  true  idea  of  God,  not 
only  concerning  man  and  woman,  but  also  concern- 
ing the  beast  of  the  field  and  the  fowls  of  the  air. 


CHAPTER   XX. 

Of  the  Satisfaction  of  Divine  Justice. 

I. — Christ  suffers  and  dies  for  sinners.  A  substi- 
tute for  transgressors  is  found  in  the  crucified  Son 
of  Mary.  Divine  Justice  is  satisfied.  The  atonement 
is  made.  Such  are  the  expressions  which  are  often 
heard  in  the  creeds  and  teachings  of  the  existing 
churches.  Similar  expressions  are  found  in  the 
Bible.  "  He  is  wounded  for  our  transgressions  ;  he 
is  bruised  for  our  iniquities."  "  Behold  the  Lamb 
of  God,  who  takcth  away  the  sins  of  the  world." 
The  true  and  interior  meaning  of  such  expressions, 
the  meaning  which  is  adapted  to  that  higher  devel- 
opment of  the  human  race  which  exists  at  the  pres- 
ent time, — may  be  supposed  to  be  as  follows. 

2. — When  we  say  that  Christ  suffered  on  the 
Cross,  or  suffered  in  any  way,  we  make  the  inquiry 
in  connection  with  such  expressions,  as  we  are  con- 
stantly making  the  inquiry  in  other  connections, 
Who  and  what  is  Christ?  Christ  is  not  merely  an 
outward  form,  not  merely  a  physical  organization  ; 


Iq2  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

but  a  living  principle,  a  spiritual  Essentiality  or  Di 
vine  Love ;  Christ  not  only  was  but  is.  The  Christ- 
spirit — we  do  not  say  every  man  who  bears  out- 
wardly the  name  of  Christ, — but  the  Christ-spirit,  the 
Essential  Christ,  does  everything  and  suffers  every- 
thing  which  can  be  justly  done  and  suffered  for 
transgressors.  This  is  right.  And  nothing  short 
of  this  is  right.  The  Christ-spirit  compared  with 
any  and  every  other  principle  of  life,  is  the  spirit  of 
all  knowledge,  of  all  truth,  of  all  joy,  all  glory. 
Freed  from  the  disturbing  and  blinding  influences 
of  self,  it  sees  where  the  sinner  does  not  see ;  it 
knows  where  the  sinner  does  not  know.  It  has 
strength  where  the  transgressor  is  weak.  It  has 
heaven  in  its  present  and  its  future,  with  the  knowl- 
edge, that  the  sinner  has  no  heritage  of  happiness, 
either  now  or  hereafter  if  he  continues  in  his  sins 
It  is  right  therefore  that  the  Essential  Christ  should 
suffer.  It  was  right  that  he  should  suffer  upon  the 
Cross.     It  is  right  that  he  should  suffer  now. 

4. — Divine  Justice,  the  divine  perception  of  the 
absolute  right,  requires  that  the  true  people  of  God 
should  sympathize  with,  should  act  and  should  more 
or  less  suffer,  for  the  good  of  sinners.  Divine  Jus- 
tice is  not  satisfied,  and  cannot  be  satisfied,  till  this 
divine  ransom  of  toil  and  suffering, — without  which 
the  Christ-spirit  would  fail  to  be  the  Christ-spirit, — 


THE  SATISFACTION  OF  DIVINE  JUSTICE.     193 

is  fully  paid.  The  child  of  God  who  is  not  willing 
to  act  and  suffer  for  God's  cause,  by  doing  good  to 
others  who  stand  in  need  of  his  labors,  cannot  claim 
to  be  the  child  of  God.  And  therefore  it  may  be 
truly  said,  that  Divine  Justice  in  such  a  case  is  not 
satisfied.  When  Christ  died  justice  was  satisfied. 
He  did  that  which  it  was  right  or  just  for  him  to  do. 

5. — At  this  point  it  is  possible,  that  a  simple  illus- 
tration may  aid  us  in  understanding  the  subject.  A 
person  for  instance  is  a  physiologist.  Through  the 
good  providence  of  God  which  has  watched,  over 
him  and  instructed  him,  he  has  been  made  acquaint- 
ed with  the  mechanism  and  laws  of  the  human  con- 
stitution ;  and  understands  perfectly  what  injurious 
and  destructive  results  follow  from  intemperance  in 
eating  and  drinking.  I  think  that  such  a  man  is 
bound,  in  other  words,  that  "  divine  justice"  requires 
him  to  communicate  such  information  to  his  brother 
man  for  his  good  ;  although  it  may  cost  him  time, 
labor,  opposition,  rebuke,  persecution.  And  when 
he  has  done  his  duty  in  this  respect,  then  and  not 
till  then  divine  justice  is  satisfied. 

If  Christ,  with  all  his  knowledge  and  love,  with 
his  deep  insight  into  the  causes  and  consequences 
of  sin,  had  failed  to  stand  up  as  a  teacher,  or  had 
failed  to  verify  his  teachings  by  patient  endurance 
and  suffering  even  unto  death,  he  could  not  have 
9 


194 


ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 


said,  "  I  have  finished  the  work  which  Thou  gavest 
me  to  do."  John  17:  4.  And  it  was  in  this  way, 
that  Christ  or  the  Essential  Love  Life  satisfied,  what 
the  divine  or  perfect  justice  required.  A  very  dif- 
ferent sort  of  satisfaction  and  nearly  the  reverse  of 
what  it  is  generally  supposed  to  be. 

6. — Now  all  who  are  Christ's  people,  just  so  far 
as  they  are  like  Christ,  possess  the  true  Christ  na- 
ture which  is  love,  and  are  called  to  proclaim  the 
truth,  although  this  necessarily  brings  them  into  an- 
tagonism with  error,  which  involves  in  the  course  of 
the  conflict,  more  or  less  of  trial  and  suffering.  It  is 
a  great  truth,  therefore  a  permanent  truth,  if  God's 
people  under  any  circumstances  fail  to  labor  and 
suffer  for  the  good  of  transgressors  up  to  the  light 
which  is  given  them,  the  divine  justice  fails  to  be 
satisfied.  The  cross  therefore,  namely,  labor  and 
suffering  for  the  good  of  others,  becomes  a  perma- 
nent fact,  a  divine  and  unchangeable  necessity  un- 
der a  government  of  which  God  who  is  Love  is  the 
great  Centre. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

The  Doctrine  of  a  Judgment  affirmed  by  Absolute 
Religion. 

I. — It  is  undoubtedly  a  doctrine  of  Christianity, 
and  is  the  accepted  opinion  of  the  sects  or  denomi- 
nations which  exist  under  the  name  of  Christians, 
that  man  both  in  his  actions  and  character  is  sus- 
ceptible of  being  judged  ;  and  that  such  judgment 
will  certainly  come  upon  him.  And  such,  in  the 
grand  harmony  of  Christian  truth  with  the  highest 
human  intelligence,  is  the  affirmation  of  the  Abso- 
lute Religion. 

2. — And  first  we  will  consider  the  subject  in  re- 
spect to  individuals.  We  find  evidence  that  men 
individually,  that  every  man  no  matter  what  may  be 
his  situation,  is  properly  the  subject  of  a  judicial  pro- 
cess, and  cannot  by  any  possibility  escape  being  ul- 
timately brought  to  judgment,  in  the  great  fact  that 
he  is  created  with  a  judge  in  his  own  bosom.  Con- 
science considered  in  connection  with  the  intellect, 


I96  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

which  furnishes  the  facts  upon  which  its  decisions 
are  founded,  constitutes  a  tribunal  which  exists  in 
perpetual  session  ;  and  out  of  its  own  interior  and 
wonderful  resources,  consummates  the  verdict  which 
it  gives  of  a  good  or  evil  action,  of  a  good  or  evil 
life,  with  a  correspondent  reward  on  the  one  hand, 
or  a  correspondent  punishment  on  the  other.  Some- 
times the  reward  or  punishment  is  realized  in  out- 
ward good  or  outward  sorrow,  in  the  deprivation  of 
external  comforts  or  in  the  enrichment  of  external 
gifts;  but  whether  this  be  the  case  or  not,  the  rec- 
ompenses of  the  soul  in  one  form  or  the  other,  the 
joys  or  sorrows  of  conscience  can  never  fail. 

3. — And  this  is  so  because  it  cannot  be  other 
wise.  If  holiness  or  justice  is  a  part  of  God's  na- 
ture,— and  without  this  God  ceases  to  be  God, — 
then  it  is  impossible  for  him  to  create  a  being,  with 
the  voluntary  and  intelligent  capacities  of  good  and 
evil,  without  at  the  same  time  making  him  responsi- 
ble for  such  good  and  evil.  Man  is  judged  because 
the  tribunal  exists  in  himself;  and  the  tribunal  ex- 
ists there,  because  God  in  making  man  could  not  be- 
come a  contradiction  to  himself;  and  could  not  act 
in  violation  or  neglect  of  the  eternal  and  essential 
principles  which  lie  hidden  in  his  own  divine  na- 
ture. 

4. — And  let  us  look  further,  at  the  practical  re- 


DOCTRINE  OF  A   JUDGMENT  AFFIRMED.       jgy 

suits.  If  man  were  not  liable  to  be  brought  to  judg- 
ment, and  were  not  restrained  and  regulated  in  his 
conduct  by  the  knowledge  of  this  liability,  what 
conflict  and  wrong  and  fraud  and  oppression  would 
be  likely  to  follow !  In  such  a  state  of  things, 
where  everything  would  be  regulated  by  power  in- 
dependent of  justice,  existence  itself  would  cease  to 
be  a  blessing. 

Looking  at  the  subject  in  whatever  way  we  will, 
the  voice  of  eternal  reason  giving  itself  utterance  in 
the  Absolute  Religion,  agrees  with  Revealed  Reli- 
gion in  the  fact,  that  the  book  of  the  judgment  is, 
and  from  the  nature  of  the  case  must  be  opened; 
that  the  sentence  is  and  must  be  executed  ;  that 
under  the  figurative  expressions  of  the  Scriptures, 
as  well  as  under  the  dogmatic  formulas  of  religious 
creeds,  there  lies  a  great  and  unchangeable  verity 
which  cannot  be  unheeded. 

5. — And  it  remains  to  be  added  that  men  are  not 
only  judged  in  their  individual  capacity,  but  they 
necessarily  take  their  share  of  the  judgment  which 
falls  upon  all  corporate  bodies  and  associations  and 
communities,  of  which  they  are  members.  The  life 
of  such  associations  and  communities  is  made  up  of 
individual  life  ;  the  responsibility  of  such  complex 
bodies,  formed  for  ends  which  involve  moral  results, 
is  the  aggregate  of  individual  responsibilities  ;  and 


g  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

the  reward  which'  attends  the  associated  good-doing, 
and  the  punishment  which  follows  the  associated 
evil-doing,  reach  all  the  individuals. 

And  therefore  it  may  be  said  as  a  philosophical 
affirmation,  and  it  is  found  to  be  true  as  a  matter  of 
fact,   that  families  and   neighborhoods  are  judged, 
that  towns  and  cities  are  judged,  that  all  business 
corporations  are  judged,  that  nations  are  judged,  that 
worlds  are  judged.     And  thus  it  will  be  found,  that 
the  great  and  overshadowing  fact  of  judgment  ex- 
tends to  everything  which  is  capable  of  being  judged  ; 
although  it  is  true,  that  it  necessarily  varies  in  the 
form  which  it  puts  on,  and   in  its  degree,  with  the 
great   variety   of  things,  and   the  modification  and 
character  of  things  to  which  it  applies  ;  but  taking 
place  under  the  adjustments  of  a  Being  who  never 
errs,  the  judgment  always  is  just. 


CHAPTER   XXII. 

The  Doctrine  of  Heaven  and  Hell. 

I. — It  is  a  fact  worthy  of  consideration  because  it 
involves  principles  that  have  a  permanent  foundation, 
that  all  religions  have  their  heaven  and  hell.  The 
Absolute  Religion  which,  though  really  first  in  time, 
comes  latest  in  the  historical  succession  of  religions, 
and  which  tries  to  expound  those  that  have  gone 
before  it  and  to  adjust  them  to  each  other,  teaches 
that  heaven  and  hell  are  facts  of  mental  experience, 
in  other  words  are  states  of  the  mind,  rather  than  lo- 
calities. It  is  true  that  the  Absolute  Religion,  in 
taking  this  important  position,  does  not  necessarily 
deny  locality  as  something  which  is  predicablc  of 
such  facts  of  experience.  And  it  docs  not  do  this, 
for  the  simple  and  sufficient  reason,  that  locality  is  a 
necessary  incident  of  finitcness  ;  and  that  it  is  im- 
possible to  have  an  idea  of  finite  beings,  without 
having  an  idea  of  the  place  which  they  occupy. 
But  the  Absolute  doctrine  though  it  does  not  by  any 


200  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

means  exclude  the  consideration  of  locality  or  place, 
is  understood  to  deal  primarily  and  chiefly  with  the 
intrinsic  or  essential  nature,  rather  than  with  the 
forms  and  incidents  of  things. 

2. — It  is  not  easy  to  give  definitions  which  will 
be  satisfactory  to  all.  But  perhaps  it  will  be  suffi- 
cient to  say,  that  Heaven  in  its  essential  nature,  is 
that  state  of  inward  experience  which  excludes 
doubt  and  sorrow,  and  which  is  the  subject  of  all  that 
happiness,  which  results  from  a  harmony  with  the 
immutable  law  of  right,  including  as  the  necessary 
result  of  such  harmony,  the  approbation  of  God, 
and  full  and  happy  communion  with  him. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  assert,  however,  that  this  is 
the  best  statement  which  is  possible  to  be  made  of 
the  absolute  or  essential  heaven.  It  is  sufficient  to 
know,  that  the  statement  embracing  essentially  these 
ideas  cannot  vary  greatly  from  these  terms. 

3. — And  now  we  proceed  to  say,  that  the  doctrine 
under  consideration  results  necessarily  from  the  fact, 
that  the  subjects  or  inhabitants  of  the  state  called 
Heaven,  are  spiritual  or  mental  beings.  It  is  very 
true,  and  it  is  one  of  the  results  of  the  additional  fact 
that  they  are  finite  beings,  that  they  are  clothed  in 
bodily  or  material  forms ;  but  there  is  a  great  differ- 
ence between  the  clothing  or  forms  of  things,  and 
the  substance  or  essence  of  things.     It  cannot  be 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  HE  A  VEN  AND  HELL.       20I 

said  that  men  in  their  intrinsic  nature  are  material, 
nor  can  it  be  said  that  the  laws  which  govern  them 
are  material,  but  the  facts,  laws  and  experiences  per- 
taining to  the  essential  man,  in  a  word  anything  and 
everything  which  goes  to  constitute  the  interior 
man  in  distinction  from  the  outward  man,  is  wholly 
of  a  spiritual  nature.  For  instance,  man  in  his  phys- 
ical or  material  nature  has  an  outward  form  and  out- 
ward organs ;  and  in  the  possession  and  exercise  of 
such  organs,  he  does,  and  suffers,  and  enjoys  those 
things,  which  are  appropriate  to  such  an  organiza- 
tion ;  but  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  say,  that  in  his 
mental  or  spiritual  nature  it  is  very  different.  His 
internal  action,  in  distinction  from  his  outward  or 
physical  action,  is  the  activity  of  a  spiritual  nature  ; 
and  he  does,  and  suffers,  and  enjoys  those  things, 
which  are  appropriate  to  spirit. 

4. — We  cannot  delay  in  order  to  go  into  particu- 
lars to  any  great  extent.  One  or  two  illustrations 
will  answer.  Man  for  instance  has  a  conscience. 
By  means  of  conscience,  using  the  term  in  the  more 
general  sense  as  indicating  the  whole  moral  nature, 
he  discriminates  between  right  and  wrong.  And 
when  he  acts  in  accordance  with  the  right,  he  is 
happy;  and  when  he  does  wrong  he  suffers.  Man 
also  has  affectional  susceptibilities,  including  the 
great  and  controlling  power  in  his  spiritual  nature 


202  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

which  enables  him  to  love ;  and  in  the  exercise  of 
this  benevolent  principle,  which  always  operates  in 
the  direction  of  good  to  others,  he  finds  an  ample 
and  rich  reward  in  his  own  nature.  His  failure  to 
exercise  it,  on  the  contrary,  and  the  indulgence 
without  adequate  cause  of  hostile  feelings,  is  attend- 
ed, according  to  a  wise  law  of  being,  with  a  corre- 
spondent unhappiness  to  himself.  So  that  happiness 
resulting  from  conformity  with  spiritual  laws,  con- 
stitutes heaven;  and  unhappiness  resulting  from  a 
violation  of  these  laws  constitutes  hell.  The  same 
general  principles  which  apply  to  the  one  apply  to 
the  other. 

5. — And  this  is  not  all.  It  can  be  said  also  and 
in  such  a  way  that  contradiction  cannot  easily  have 
a  place,  that  there  is  a  fixed  and  necessary  discrimi- 
nation between  them  ;  a  gulf  of  separation,  excavated 
by  differences  of  nature  which  can  never  be  filled  up  ; 
so  that  in  their  interior  and  distinctive  nature 
heaven  can  never  become  hell,  and  hell  can  never 
become  heaven.  Philosophers  tell  us  that  there  is 
an  immutable  distinction  between  right  and  wrong ; 
right  in  its  essential  nature  can  never  become  wrong, 
and  wrong  can  never  become  right.  But  in  study- 
ing the  relations  of  ultimate  ideas  and  facts,  we  shall 
find  that  right  and  wrong  are  in  a  very  important 
sense  the  foundations  of  heaven  and  hell ;  that  they 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  IIEA  VEN  AND  HELL.       203 

are  the  essential  basis  upon  which  heaven  and  hell 
arc  erected;  and  that  the  affirmation  of  an  immuta- 
ble distinction  and  separation  between  them,  is  vir- 
tually an  affirmation  of  a  like  distinction  and  separ- 
ation of  that  which  grows  out  of  them. 

And  if  it  should  be  affirmed  at  this  point,  that 
these  statements  have  reference  rather  to  identity 
than  to  duration,  and  that  the  existence  and  the 
distinctive  difference  of  both  may  be  conceded,  with- 
out involving  the  fact  of  their  unchangeable  perma- 
nency',  then  it  remains  to  be  added  further,  that,  inas- 
much as  it  is  impossible  to  conceive  of  a  moral  uni- 
verse where  right  and  wrong  are  not,  so  it  is 
impossible  to  conceive  of  such  an  universe  where 
heaven  and  hell  are  not.  So  that  on  philosophical 
principles,  heaven  and  hell  are  not  more  immutable 
and  distinctive  in  their  nature,  than  they  arc  un- 
changeable and  eternal  in  their  duration.  And  ac- 
cordingly it  is  not  enough  to  affirm  the  naked  fact 
of  the  existence  of  heaven  and  hell  ;  but  the  truth 
in  its  absolute  form  requires  us  to  affirm  also,  that 
there  is  an  eternal  heaven  and  an  eternal  hell. 

6.— The  Absolute  Religion  affirms  also,  although 
it  may  be  conceded  that  it  is  not  a  matter  which  is 
equal  in  importance,  the  locality  of  heaven  and  hell. 
Heaven  and  hell  in  their  essential  nature  exist  in 
beings ;  and  in  beings  of  whom  it  can  be  said  that 


204  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

they  have  perceptions,  emotions  and  conscience ; 
in  beings,  who  are  not  simply  existences  but  person- 
alities. But  it  is  a  primary  conception  or  thought 
of  the  human  mind,  that  such  beings  and  indeed  any 
beings,  of  whom  it  can  be  said  that  they  are  finite 
and  not  infinite,  have  and  must  have  limitations, 
boundaries,  outlines,  form,  which  in  fact  constitute 
one  of  the  essential  differences  between  the  finite 
and  the  Infinite,  and  which  necessarily  carry  with 
them  the  idea  of  locality  or  place.  Affirm  of  any 
being  or  thing,  that  it  has  outline  and  form,  and  you 
necessarily  imply  and  affirm  of  it,  that  it  must  be 
and  is  in  one  place  rather  than  another ;  in  other 
words,  that  it  has  place;  and  that  place  or  locality 
can  no  more  be  separated  from  it  than  outline  or 
form  can  be  separated  from  it. 

Furthermore  it  is  well  known  that  philosophical 
thinkers  often  speak  of  the  fitness  of  tilings.  And  in 
such  a  sense  that  they  not  only  accept  of  it  as  a 
speculative  truth,  but  fully  believe  in  it  and  reason 
from  it  as  an  available  and  important  basis  of  argu- 
ment, in  ascertaining  and  adjusting  the  position  of 
one  thing  considered  in  relation  to  another.  And 
the  Absolute  Religion,  in  harmony  with  this  view, 
utters  as  one  of  its  truths,  that  it  is  not  agreeable  to 
the  fitness  of  things,  in  other  words  that  it  is  not  an 
appropriate,   well   adjusted,  and   fitting   thing,   that 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  ILEA  VEN  AND  HELL.      205 

heaven  and  hell  should  be  thought  to  be  without 
law,  and  should  move  their  locality  at  random,  and 
should  be  here  and  there  and  anywhere  and  every- 
where,  without  regard  to  the  relative  situation,  and 
the  rights  and  claims,  and  progress,  and  histories  of 
other  beings  and  other  localities ;  and  thus  disturb, 
if  it  were  a  possible  thing,  the  unchangeable  harmo- 
nies of  the  universe.  And  therefore  it  can  be  said 
for  this  and  for  other  reasons,  especially  in  view  of 
the  great  law  of  attraction,  which  compels  the  asso- 
ciation and  permanent  neighborhood  of  those  who 
have  likeness  of  character,  that  heaven  and  hell 
have  not  only  a  locality  but  a  fixed  and  ascertaina- 
ble locality,  so  that  no  one  in  the  future  life  will 
have  any  difficulty  in  knowing  his  own  place. 

7. — And  still  further,  the  Absolute  Religion  af- 
firms, in  accordance  with  the  expressions  that  are 
found  in  the  revealed  or  written  religions,  that 
heaven  and  hell  have  their  walls  and  gates,  theii 
trees  of  life,  their  golden  harps,  and  their  flaming 
fires  ;  with  the  liberty  however,  of  substituting  in  a 
proper  manner  the  inward  meaning  for  the  outward 
letter,  and  the  great  substance  for  the  metaphorical 
shadow.  The  walls  and  gates,  divested  of  their 
metaphorical  import,  are  the  ideas,  truths,  or  laws, 
of  life,  which  attach  to  finite  existences  in  every  sit- 
uation, and  which  indicate  the  boundaries  or  limits 


206  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

which  they  cannot  pass.  Not  walls  or  gates  in  the 
material  sense,  not  something  visible  and  tangible 
which  has  been  fashioned  and  set  up  by  human 
hands  or  any  other  finite  agency;  but  they  are  not 
the  less  real  on  that  account ;  and  may  be  said  to 
possess  even  greater  strength  and  permanency. 
They  cannot  be  broken  through  as  material  walls 
can,  or  undermined,  or  over-leaped,  or  worn  out ;  but 
they  stand  forever.  And  in  like  manner  the  tree  of 
life,  and  the  waters  of  life,  and  the  golden  harps, 
and  the  flaming  fires,  if  they  do  not  express  like 
walls  and  gates,  the  limitations  of  position  and  ac- 
tion, will  be  found  on  a  proper  interpretation,  to 
imply  and  to  express  certain  forms  of  inward  expe- 
rience both  good  and  evil.  There  are  joys  and 
griefs  of  the  spirit  as  well  as  physical  joys  and  griefs ; 
joys  and  griefs  which  do  not  depend  upon  positive 
and  arbitrary  enactments,  but  which  necessarily  re- 
sult from  the  practical  relation  of  our  lives  to  the 
laws  of  right  and  wrong,  and  without  which  heaven 
and  hell  could  have  no  existence. 

8. — And  lastly  the  Absolute  Religion,  speaking 
alike  in  all  lands  and  all  languages  and  all  intellects, 
not  only  announces  the  existence  of  heaven  and 
hell,  and  with  the  seal  of  eternity  upon  them,  but 
proclaims  with  equal  distinctness  to  the  doer  of 
good  and  evil,  that  there  is  no  possible  escape  from 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  IIEA  VEN  AND  HELL.       207 

them.  They  are  not  only  facts  but  inheritances  ; 
not  only  existences  but  are  capable  of  being  peopled 
and  dwelt  in.  Such  is  the  nature  and  fixed  relation 
of  things,  that  it  can  be  said  in  terms  which  admit 
of  no  uncertainty,  that  the  sinner  is  necessarily  a 
sufferer  ;  and  that  the  doer  of  good  is  necessarily 
happy,  and  that  neither  the  one  nor  the  other, 
neither  the  good  man  nor  the  sinner,  can  fly  from 
the  heaven  or  hell  that  is  appropriate  to  him  any 
more  than  he  can  fly  from  himself.  The  man  who  is 
excluded  from  the  kingdom  of  love,  and  has  his  home 
and  kingdom  in  himself,  who  in  making  self  his  cen 
tre  is  cast  out  of  the  All  and  is  shut  up  in  the  one, 
who  is  sunk  from  the  liberty  of  God  into  the  sla- 
very of  the  creature,  is  in  the  truth  and  essence  of 
Hell,  whatever  may  be  said  of  his  locality.  Hell 
therefore  is  a  state  of  mind.  And  accordingly  the 
Absolute  Religion  has  no  controversy  with  the  doc- 
trine of  Hell,  whether  found  in  the  Christian  Scrip- 
tures or  anywhere  else,  because  Hell  when  properly 
explained,  is  perceived  to  be,  not  a  material  Tophet 
or  Gehenna,  but  a  fact  of  the  universal  consciousness  ; 
and  what  is  more,  it  is  an  accepted  problem'  of  the 
primary  or  universal  philosophy.  Nor  has  it  any 
controversy  with  the  doctrine  of  the  locality  of 
Hell;  because  locality,  when  ideas  arc  subjected  to 
a   suitable  analysis,    is  a  necessary    incident    to    all 


2q3  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

finite  beings  ;  and  the  locality  which  constitutes  the 
place  of  Hell's  subjects,  necessarily  constitutes  the 
locality  of  Hell  itself. 

The  Absolute  Religion  accepts  Hell  just  as  it 
accepts  Heaven,  and  it  accepts  both  of  them,  not 
only  because  they  are  matters  of  observation  and 
consciousness,  but  because  the  unchangeable  affirma- 
tion of  philosophy  proclaim  the  necessity  of  their 
being.  And  it  accepts  the  locality  of  Heaven  (a  lo- 
cality but  not  necessarily  a  fixed  locality,)  for  the 
same  reason  that  it  accepts  the  locality  of  Hell. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 

Of  the  Sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost,  or  the  Sin  which 
cannot  be  forgiven. 

I. — The  doctrine  of  forgiveness  of  sin  cannot  be 
understood  in  all  its  aspects,  without  some  specific 
reference  to  the  doctrine  of  sin  itself.  The  Scrip- 
tures recognize  two  kinds  of  sin.  And  accordingly 
as  forgiveness  has  relation  to  sin,  it  modifies  itself  in 
accordance  with  the  nature  of  the  sin  to  be  for- 
given ; — taking  effect  in  some  cases  and  not  in  others. 
The  first  of  the  two  forms  of  sin  to  which  reference 
has  been  made,  is  sometimes  called  in  the  Scriptures 
the  "  sin  of  ignorance."  Much  account  is  made  of 
this  sin  in  the  code  of  Moses.  See  Levit.  4:  2-13, 
Numb.  15:  24-30.  This  form  of  sin,  which  is  that 
of  which  the  Apostle  Paul  was  especially  guilty,  1st 
Tim.  1:13,  and  to  which  he  refers  in  his  address  to 
the  Athenians  on  Mars  Hill,  Acts  17:  30,  results  in 
part  from  the  imperfection  of  man's  finite  condition. 
His  experience  is  limited.     His  knowledge  is  neces- 


2io  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

sarily  small  in  the  beginning.  He  advances  amid 
many  obstacles  and  drawbacks.  And  without  know- 
ing precisely  what  he  does,  and  without  the  specific 
intention  of  doing  evil,  he  oftentimes  does  those 
things  which  are  injurious  either  to  himself  or  oth- 
ers. This  is  that  "  time  of  ignorance  which  God 
winks  at."  God  does  not  exact  from  the  weak- 
nesses and  imperfections  of  man's  childhood,  that 
which  he  may  properly  exact  from  his  advanced 
maturity. 

2. — The  second  form  of  sin  is  a  sin  of  knowledge, 
and  therefore  of  deliberate  intention.  It  is  the  sin 
of  those,  who  either  know  or  who  might  know  if 
they  would  employ  their  faculties  to  that  purpose, 
what  sin  is.  It  is,  therefore,  the  sin  of  the  heart ; 
and  has  in  it  that  element  of  pride  and  obstinacy 
which  is  the  essence  of  blasphemy.  The  person  who 
commits  it  is  described  in  the  book  of  Numbers,  as  the 
man  who  "  doeth  aught  presumptuously  ;  "  and  there- 
fore in  distinction  from  the  sin  of  ignorance,  it  might 
properly  be  denominated  the  sin  of  presumption. 
It  is  the  sin  of  Goliah  of  Gath,  who  defied  the  armies 
of  the  living  God,  and  of  all  that  unbelieving,  proud 
and  violent  class  of  men,  whom  the  Philistines  rep- 
resent ;  although  it  undoubtedly  and  very  often  ex- 
ists in  different  degrees  of  openness  and  boldness. 
It  is  the  sin  of  Ananias  and  Sapphira,  who  deliber- 


SIN   WHICH  CANNOT  BE  FORGIVEN.  211 

ately  withheld  from  God  what  they  knew  belonged 
to  Him.  It  is  the  sin  of  Judas  who,  standing  for 
years  in  the  clearness  of  the  light  of  the  Son  of  God, 
did  yet  betray  Him.  It  is  the  sin  in  some  degree 
at  least,  of  all  men,  and  of  every  man  at  all  times  and 
in  every  age  of  the  world,  who  docs  not  cheerfully 
and  fully  act  up  to  the  light  within  him. 

3. — The  distinction  between  these  kinds  or  forms 
of  sin  is  often  made,  with  greater  or  less  degree  of 
distinctness,  in  writers  on  the  history  of  Philosophic 
Opinions,  on  Natural  Law,  and  on  Moral  Philoso- 
phy ; — not  excluding  some  philosophic  writers  among 
the  early  Greeks  and  Romans.  In  Latin  writers  the 
sin  of  ignorance  or  any  form  of  sin,  which  indicated 
weakness  and  imperfection,  rather  than  deliberate 
evil  intention,  was  denominated  culpa  or  was  ex- 
pressed by  some  other  equivalent  term,  while  the 
deliberate  or  "  presumptuous"  sin  was  denominated 
crimen. 

4. — Now  keping  in  mind  this  fundamental  dis- 
tinction in  the  forms  of  transgression,  and  connect- 
ing it  with  forgiveness,  which  implies  in  its  higher 
and  celestial  sense  not  only  overlooking  a  wrong, 
and  passing  it  by,  but  also  loving  harmonization,  we 
arc  prepared  to  add  that  the  sin  of  ignorance  can 
be  forgiven.  It  is  a  sin  of  the  head  rather  than  of 
heart  ;  and  not  only  can  be  forgiven,  but  ought 


2I2  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

to  be  and  must  be  forgiven  by  all  who  are  the  true 
children  of  God.  But  the  sin  which  is  described  in 
the  Bible  as  the  "  sin  of  presumption,"  cannot  be  for- 
given in  that  higher  and  true  sense  which  has  been 
mentioned,  because  it  is  both  a  sin  of  knowledge  and 
a  sin  of  the  heart.  It  is  deliberate,  self-confident 
and  defiant ;  and  therefore  cannot  be  forgiven  inas- 
much as  it  rejects  forgiveness.  The  sin  of  those 
who  crucified  Christ,  great  as  it  was,  could  be  for- 
given. Some  of  them  undoubtedly  thought,  as 
Paul  in  his  persecutions  of  the  church,  that  they 
were  doing  God's  service.  Christ  prayed  "  Father, 
forgive  them  for  they  know  not  zvhat  they  do."  But 
he  says  nothing  about  forgiveness  of  the  sin  of 
Judas,  who  cannot  be  supposed  to  have  sinned  in 
ignorance,  but  to  have  known  well  that  he  was  sac- 
rificing a  good  and  holy  man  from  a  purely  selfish 
consideration. 

5. — With  these  explanations  we  are  enabled  per- 
haps better  to  understand  the  statement  in  Mat- 
thew 12:31.  "  Wherefore  I  say  unto  you,  all  manner 
of  sin  and  blasphemy  shall  be  forgiven  unto  men  ; 
but  the  blasphemy  against  the  Holy  Ghost  shall  not 
be  forgiven  unto  men.  And  whosoever  speaketh  a 
word  against  the  Son  of  man  it  shall  be  forgiven 
Him.  But  whosoever  speaketh  against  the  Holy 
Ghost,  it  shall  not  be  forgiven  him  neither  in   this 


SIN  WHICH  CANNOT  BE  FORGIVEN.         213 

world,  neither  in  the  world  to  come."  In  this  pas- 
sage, which  harmonizes  with  what  has  already  been 
said  of  the  sin  of  ignorance,  and  the  sin  of  presump- 
tion, we  have  two  forms  of  sin  brought  together  and 
placed  side  by  side,  namely  the  sin  against  the  Son 
of  man  and  the  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost ;  and 
they  are  so  far  essentially  distinct  from  each  other, 
that  one  can  be  forgiven,  the  other  cannot.  To 
speak  against  the  Son  of  Man,  as  we  understand  it, 
is  to  speak  against  or  controvert  on  the  ground  of 
imperfect  knowledge,  the  doctrine  of  a  Personal 
Christ : — for  instance,  the  predictions  which  have  re 
lation  to  Him,  the  facts  of  his  incarnation,  the  varied 
incidents  of  his  history  and  other  things.  It  is  obvi- 
ous, that  this  is  a  sin  which  is  consistent  with  a  de- 
gree of  sincerity;  and  which  in  being  sincere,  is 
likely  to  work  itself  out  into  the  truth.  It  is  a  sin 
therefore  which  can  be  forgiven.  But  the  sin  against 
the  Holy  Ghost,  that  deliberate  form  of  it  which  is 
expressed  in  the  Greek  word  translated  blasphemy, 
which  is  sin  against  the  Internal  or  Essential  Christ 
in  distinction  from  the  outward  or  personal  Christ, 
cannot  be  forgiven. 

6. — There  appears  to  be,  and  there  undoubtedly 
is,  a  great  philosophical  principle  involved  in  the 
statement  which  Christ  makes  ;  as  in  point  of  fact  it 


2I4  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

will  generally  be  found  that  such  biblical  facts  and 
statements  everywhere  involve  principles. 

The  Bible  viewed  beneath  the  surface  of  its  facts, 
and  in  the  light  of  an  interior  spiritual  interpreta- 
tion, is  a  book  of  principles.     And  the  principle  here 
is  this.     Errors  of  judgment,  mistakes  arising  from 
unintentional  ignorance,  even  unholy  affections  aris- 
ing from  mere  misapprehension  and  every  thing  of 
that  kind  may  be  forgiven.     But  the  sin  against  the 
Holy  Ghost  in  its  essence  is  selfishness,  and  is  delib- 
erate  and   persistent.      The   Holy  Ghost,  whatever 
may  be  said  of  his  manifestations  or  his  Personality, 
is  God  in  his  nature.     And  union  therefore  on  the 
part  of  God,  with   those   who  sin  against  the  Holy 
Ghost,  is  an  impossibility,  because  it  would  be  the 
union  of  things  which  at  the  same  time  are  divided 
against  each  other — of  love  and  selfishness,  of  God 
and  satan.     And  forgiveness  therefore,  which  always 
involves  the  fact  of  union,  when  it  exists  in  its  high- 
est and  truest  sense,  is  necessarily  excluded  under 
such  circumstances. 


CHAPTER   XXIV. 

Prayer  in  its  Relation  to  the  Absolute  Religion. 

i- — Prayer,  in  its  analysis  and  its  foundation, 
necessarily  involves  the  fact  of  the  existence  and 
the  presence  of  two  personalities — of  God  who  is 
prayed  to  and  of  man  who  prays.  Prayer  in  utter- 
ance is  not  merely  and  exclusively  petitionary ;  but 
includes  both  supplication  and  adoration.  The  ba- 
sis of  these  two  forms,  or  that  which  entitles  them 
to  an  uttered  existence,  is  found  in  the  character  of 
the  being  who  is  prayed  to.  God  can  always  give 
what  we  ask  for ;  and  his  character,  perfect  in  all  its 
attributes,  is  worthy  of  the  highest  adoration.  So 
far  as  this,  we  have  a  basis  of  fact  and  thought 
which  is  unchangeable,  and  which  to  this  extent 
evidently  brings  the  doctrine  of  Prayer  within  the 
limits  of  the  Absolute  Religion. 

2. — As  we  advance  further,  however,  we  are 
obliged  to  admit,  that  the  common  doctrine  on  the 
subject  of  prayer  may  be  regarded  as  somewhat  at 


2l6  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

fault.  The  doctrine  to  which  we  refer  is,  that  God 
is  necessarily  unimpressible,  or  as  the  theologians 
commonly  express  it,  that  he  is  impassive  ;  in  other 
words,  that  though  he  hears  he  cannot  be  moved, 
and  that  in  the  possession  of  all  knowledge,  he  is 
nevertheless  without  emotions  and  affections,  be- 
cause his  plans  being  founded  in  infinite  wisdom  are 
fixed  and  inflexible,  and  his  emotions  and  affections, 
which  have  their  antecedence  and  basis  in  the  facts 
of  existence,  are  necessarily  as  fixed  and  "  impas- 
sive "  as  his  immovable  plans.  We  do  not  deny 
that  this  is  a  view,  which,  properly  understood  and 
under  proper  limitations,  embraces  an  important 
truth.  But  when  not  accepted  with  these  condi- 
tions, it  cannot  be  regarded  as  the  whole  truth,  and 
perhaps  it  would  be  correct  to  say,  that  it  is  a  seri- 
ous and  injurious  perversion  of  the  truth.  It  should 
be  kept  in  mind  that  man  is  not  a  mere  idealism  or 
fiction  in  the  world  of  existences ;  but  in  a  true  and 
substantial  sense  of  the  term  a  reality.  Next  to 
God,  because  he  is  in  a  true  and  especial  sense  the 
child  of  God,  he  is  the  great  fact  of  the  universe ; 
vast  in  powers,  complicated  and  yet  wisely  adjusted 
in  the  methods  of  mental  action,  and  eternal  in  his 
duration. 

3. — And  further  it  is  a  necessity,  that   God's   ex- 
istence being  without  limitations,  should  correspond 


ON  PR  A  YER.  2  1 7 

to,  embrace,  and  harmonize  with  all  other  existen- 
ces. Man  cannot  pray  without  God's  hearing  his 
prayer ;  and  he  cannot  offer  a  prayer,  so  far  as  the 
clement  of  desire  is  a  part  of  it,  without  God's  an- 
swering ;  although  the  way  or  method  of  answering 
is  not  always  perceived.  Such  a  prayer  being  a  fact 
in  his  existence,  it  is  necessarily  a  fact  known:  and 
being  a  fact  and  being  known  as  a  fact,  it  cannot  by 
any  possibility  be  disregarded.  God  is  moved  by  it. 
4. — But  can  it  not  be  said,  that  God  himself  by 
his  own  interior  operation  made  the  prayer.  Such 
is  sometimes  the  doctrine.  And  yet,  even  if 
something  can  be  said  in  favor  of  that  view, 
can  it  not  be  said  with  far  greater  truth,  that  God 
made  man,  and  that  in  the  exercise  of  the  powers 
and  responsibilities  God  had  given  him,  man  made 
the  prayer  ?  God  and  man,  though  standing  in  the 
closest  relationship,  are  not  identical.  It  is  a  mis- 
taken and  erroneous  philosophy  which  asserts  it. 
Man  from  the  moment  of  his  creation  became  a 
part  of  the  universe  ;  as  we  have  already  said,  not  a 
fiction  or  pretence  or  mere  semblance  of  being,  but 
a  reality ;  not  a  thing  made  to  be  ignored  ;  not  a 
thing  made  to  be  dashed  to  pieces ;  not  a  mere 
plaything  to  be  laughed  at,  contemned,  trifled  with 
and  thrown  aside  at  will.  God  does  not  work  in 
that  way.     God  is  a  serious  being  and  very  far  from 


2 1 8  ABSOL  UTE  RELIGION. 

being  a  thoughtless  trifler ;  and  when  he  does  a 
thing  he  does  it  seriously  and  in  wisdom,  and  he 
does  it  for  permanency  ;  and  all  his  dealings  with 
man  are  stamped  and  sealed  with  justice.  Remem- 
ber therefore  that  man  is  really  and  truly  man  ;  and 
when  he  prays  at  all,  his  prayer  is  and  must  be  a 
prayer  and  nothing  else ;  and  God  hears  because 
the  ear  of  his  knowledge  is  infinite  and  cannot  be 
shut ;  and  God  answers  the  prayer  by  corresponding 
to  it  in  wisdom  and  goodness,  because  the  love  of 
his  heart  is  infinite,  and  it  is  not  possible  for  him  to 
ignore  or  to  trample  on  the  desires  of  the  children 
whom  he  has  made.  It  is  thus  and  cannot  be  oth- 
erwise. 

But  this  is  not  argument,  perhaps  some  will  say. 
And  this  in  a  certain  sense  may  be  true.  But  if  it 
is  not  argument  in  the  ordinary  sense,  it  is  some- 
thing higher  than  argument  ;  it  is  both  the  intui- 
tion of  the  intellect  and  the  affirmation  of  the  heart. 
And  now  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  we  are  speak- 
ing of  prayer,  and  not  of  the  mere  appearance  or 
pretence  of  prayer. 

We  have  already  said  that  prayer  necessarily  in- 
volves two  things,  first  the  Being  who  is  prayed  to  ; 
second  the  being  who  prays.  And  we  may  add  also, 
prayer  involves  a  desire  of  the  object  which  calls 
forth  the  prayer,  and  faith  in  God  as  the  giver  of  that 


ON  PRAYER.  219 

.'or  which  we  ask.  And  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  add 
that  there  must  be  sincerity  in  all  And  now,  look- 
ing at  the  matter  in  the  light  of  the  Absolute  Reli- 
gion, in  the  light  of  the  highest  reason,  which  is  the 
intuitional  reason,  how  is  it  possible  in  the  nature  of 
things  that  God  can  be  insensible  to,  and  take  no 
cognizance  of  a  sincere  desire  ?  Let  those  who  think 
so,  go  back  to  first  principles,  and  find  out  if  possible 
what  God  is. 

But  remember  also  that  prayer  has  faith  in  it. 
But  faith  in  God  as  the  answerer  of  prayer  in  his 
own  good  time  and  way  and  wisdom,  which  is  con- 
fessedly implied  and  involved  in  faith,  is  wholly  in- 
compatible with  the  idea  that  God  is  an  impassive 
being,  and  is  not  moved  by  our  supplications. 

5. — But  how  can  it  be  possible,  says  one,  that  God 
who  is  Infinite  should  be  moved  by  the  finite?  I 
ask  in  return,  how  is  it  possible  that  God  who  is  In- 
finite should  not  be  moved  by  the  finite  ?  The  In- 
finity of  God,  who  is  not  only  an  infinity  of  knowl- 
edge but  an  infinity  of  feeling,  implies  and  requires 
that  all  the  facts  of  the  finite  should  be  known,  and 
also  that  all  the  feelings  which  arc  appropriate  to 
this  knowledge  should  be  actually  experienced.  It 
cannot  be  otherwise.  The  failure  to  experience  all 
the  feelings  which  are  appropriate  to  all  existing  facts, 
would  imply  and  would    establish    an  imperfection 


220  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

in  his  character.  To  accept  God  in  the  infini- 
tude of  knowledge,  and  to  curtail  Him  in  the  infini- 
tude of  feeling,  is  to  mutilate  Him  in  one  of  his  most 
essential  attributes  and  to  make  him  unworthy  of 
reverence.  If  He  knows  a  thing  and  feeling  is  truly 
appropriate  to  that  thing,  then  it  follows  that  feeling 
is  a  necessity.  And  hence  it  is  not  merely  as  a  dog- 
matic declaration,  but  as  a  requisition  of  the  Abso- 
lute of  things,  that  not  a  sparrow  falleth  to  the 
ground  without  his  notice,  and  that  he  will  not  allow 
the  husbandman  to  "  muzzle  the  ox  that  treadeth  out 
the  corn."  And  does  He  not  care  for  man,  as  well  as 
for  oxen  and  the  birds  of  the  air?  Does  He  num- 
ber the  hairs  of  our  heads,  and  have  no  respect  for 
the  petitions  of  the  heart  ?  Does  he  not  pity  man's 
sorrows  and  hear  his  cries  and  honor  his  faith  ? 

When  men  know  God  only  by  the  intellect,  they^ 
may  be  at  a  loss  on  these  questions;  but  when  they 
know  him  by  the  comprehension  of  the  heart,  they 
know  what  the  answer  is,  and  there  can  be  no  other. 

The  plain  language  of  Scripture  therefore,  and 
the  doctrine  commonly  received,  that  God  is  a  hearer 
and  answerer  of  prayer,  that  He  takes  an  interest  in 
all  our  wants  and  does  not  fail  to  respond  to  them, 
is  a  doctrine  also  of  the  Absolute  Religion.  And 
every  friend  and  advocate  of  the  Absolute  Religion 
may  know  assuredly,  first  by  reason   and  secondly 


ON  PRAYER.  221 

by  experience  if  he  will  make  the  experiment, 
that  when  he  prays  to  God,  God  will  hear  him.  The 
true  parent  loves  to  have  his  children  ask  for  what 
they  want.  And  so  of  God,  He  could  not  listen  to 
the  petition,  if  he  did  not  love  to  answer  it.  The 
two  things  would  be  incompatible.  The  outward 
expression  of  that  which  is  within,  is  a  necessity.  It 
is  true  that  this  expression  in  its  modes  is  very  va- 
rious. There  is  verbal  expression;  there- is  the  ex- 
pression of  the  countenance,  there  is  the  expression 
of  action.  The  fullest  expression  of  joy  or  of  sorrow 
is  generally  found  to  require  the  combination  of  all 
these.  In  point  of  fact,  man  wants  and  he  receives  ; 
he  has  needs  and  he  has  supplies.  The  existence  of 
wants  necessitates  prayer ;  it  may  exist  merely  in  the 
form  of  desire,  or  it  may  go  further  and  embody  it- 
self in  expression  :  but  in  either  case,  it  is  prayer. 

It  may  perhaps  be  said,  that  God  who  is  omnis- 
cient knows  our  wants  ;  and  there  is  no  necessity  of 
expression.  But  expression  takes  place  of  itself,  and 
is  a  necessary  attendant  of  want  ;  and  it  is  doubtful, 
whether  the  want  could  possibly  be  supplied  with- 
out an  expression  in  some  of  its  forms. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

Relation  of  Faith  to  Salvation. 

I. — It  is  one  of  the  doctrines  of  the  Christian  reli- 
gion, as  those  doctrines  are  accepted  and  expounded 
by  the  great  mass  of  its  professors,  that  salvation  is 
by  means  of  faith.  "He  that  believcth  shall  be 
saved."  "  He  that  believeth  on  the  Son  hath  ever- 
lasting life."  These  and  numerous  other  sayings  and 
passages  express  or  imply  this  fixed  relation  between 
salvation  considered  as  a  result,  and  faith  as  a 
means  leading  to  that  result.  The  doctrine  of  sal- 
vation by  faith  is  not  only  an  affirmation  of  the 
Scriptures ;  but  when  carefully  looked  into,  will  be 
found  to  harmonize  with  the  philosophy  of  the 
mind,  and  is  entitled  to  be  received  as  an  affirma- 
tion of  enlightened  reason.  And  if  so,  the  doctrine 
which  is  announced  in  the  Scriptures,  and  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Absolute  Religion  on  the  subject,  are 
not  at  variance;  but  the  former  is  accepted  and 
illustrated  by  the  latter. 

2. — In    saying,    however,   that    salvation    is   by 


RE  LA  TION  OF  FAITH  TO  SAL  VA  TION.        223 

means  of  faith,  and  that  the  doctrine  of  salvation 
considered  as  thus  originated,  is  in  harmony  with 
the  requisitions  of  reason  and  sound  philosophy,  it 
is  necessary  to  inquire,  in  the  first  place,  what  we 
are  to  understand  by  salvation.  We  read  in  the 
wonderful  prayer,  recorded  in  the  latter  part  of 
John's  Gospel ;  "  Neither  pray  I  for  these  alone ; 
but  for  them  also  which  shall  believe  on  me  through 
their  word ;  that  they  all  may  be  one,  as  Thou,  Fa- 
ther, art  in  me,  and  I  in  thee,  that  they  also  may  be 
one  in  us."  Union  with  God, — a  state  or  condition 
of  mind  extending  to  the  most  interior  depths  of 
our  nature,  in  which  the  human  affections  and  the 
human  will  are  fully  harmonized,  and  made  one  with 
the  heart  and  will  of  the  Infinite, — was  Christ's 
prayer  for  his  people.  A  prayer  uttered  in  circum- 
stances which  show  that  he  understood  the  union 
which  he  prayed  for,  as  not  only  indicating  the 
highest  and  noblest  of  all  possible  inward  or  psychi- 
cal processes,  but  as  including  the  highest  possible 
good.  And  this,  setting  aside  what  may  be  said, 
and  to  some  extent  rightly  and  profitably  said,  of  a 
local  heaven,  which  may  be  regarded  as  only  an  in- 
cident of  salvation  and  not  identical  with  its  essen- 
tial nature,  is  our  definition  of  it,  namely,  UNION 
with  God  ;  a  state  of  the  soul ;  a  heart,  wherever 
it  may  be  found,  and  whether  in  earth  or  in  heaven, 


224  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

throbbing  in  all  its  pulsations,  in  harmony  with  the 
divine  heart,  in  unity  of  thought,  in  unity  of  feeling 
and  purpose,  and  in  unity  of  life.  Such  is  salva- 
tion ;  and  he  who  is  the  subject  of  this  experience 
is  saved. 

3. — Salvation  as  thus  defined  is  and  must  be  by 
faith.  It  is  well  known  that  the  doctrine  or  philos- 
ophy of  faith,  in  itself  considered,  implies  and  re 
quires  an  object  to  which  faith  attaches  itself.  In 
every  case  where  there  is  an  exercise  of  faith,  there 
is  and  must  be  something  which  is  believed  in.  To 
believe  and  yet  with  nothing  believed  in,  is  an  ab- 
surdity in  the  philosophy  of  the  operations  of  the 
mind,  analogous  to  a  contradiction  in  mathematics. 
And  accordingly  the  first  experience  in  the  series 
of  mental  conditions,  which  constitute  the  great  fact 
of  unity  with  God,  is  belief  or  faith  in  the  existence 
of  God.  We  must  believe  that  God  is.  It  requires 
no  argument  to  show,  that  without  such  belief  as 
this,  the  mental  experience,  called  union  with  God, 
becomes  in  the  mental  sense,  which  is  the  only  true 
and  essential  sense,  an  impossibility. 

4. — Again,  we  must  believe  not  only  in  the  ex- 
istence of  God  but  in  his  rectitude  ;  in  other  words 
that  he  will  do  what  will  be  right  towards  us  ;  that 
he  will  dispense  and  withhold,  that  he  will  guide 
and  sustain  us,  or  at  times  leave  us  without  percep- 


RELATION  OF  FAITH  TO  SALVATION.        225 

tible  guidance  and  without  perceptible  support,  and 
do  anything  and  everything  else,  always  and  under 
all  circumstances  in  accordance  with  what  is  right. 
And  the  reason  is  this,  the  human  mind  is  so  consti- 
tuted, that  it  naturally  and  necessarily  forms  the  idea 
of  rectitude  or  right.  And  not  only  this,  on  any 
subject  on  which  it  is  properly  enlightened,  it  may 
be  said  always  to  approve  the  right  and  to  love  it ; 
and  on  the  other  hand  always  to  disapprove  the 
wrong,  and  to  have  feelings  of  aversion  towards  it. 
It  is  impossible,  therefore,  that  man  should  enter 
into  a  state  of  harmony  or  union  with  God,  without 
having  faith  in  the  divine  rectitude.  God  is  mind, 
and  man  in  his  essential  nature  is  mind  ;  and  with 
man's  innate  convictions  and  feelings  in  relation  to 
rectitude,  and  without  a  full  belief  in  God's  rectitude, 
the  true  basis  of  harmony  is  wanting,  and  union  with 
God  under  such  circumstances  cannot  possibly  exist. 
And  therefore  salvation  fails. 

5. — And  this  is  not  all.  In  order  to  reach  the 
salvation  which  is  involved  in  a  unity  with  the  di- 
vine life,  it  is  further  necessary  to  believe  that  God 
accepts  us,  loves  us,  protects  us,  and  is  and  will  be  a 
friend  and  father  to  us.  This  is  one  of  the  highest 
:ind  most  important  acts  of  faith.  But  such  are  the 
laws  and  the  generation  of  thought,  that  it  is  logic- 
ally and  mentally  impossible  for  us  to  do  this,  unless 
10* 


226  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

we  renounce  evil  in  ourselves,  or  in  the  Scripture 
expression  repent  of  sin.  The  harmony  of  ideas  re- 
quires this.  No  man  ever  did  or  ever  can  believe  in 
God  as  a  friend  and  father  to  himself  personally,  and 
in  the  sense  of  an  acceptance  of  himself  into  the  re- 
lation of  unity  of  life,  so  long  as  he  is  inwardly  con- 
scious of  doing  things  wilfully,  which  God  disap- 
proves and  forbids.  It  is  intuitionally  evident  to  the 
man  who  is  in  the  habit  of  meditating  mental  prob- 
lems, that  the  states  of  mind,— namely,  an  inward 
consciousness  of  deliberately  sinning  against  God,  and 
a  belief  at  the  same  time  that  God  accepts,  approves, 
and  loves  us  and  unites  himself  with  us, — are  not 
only  antagonistic,  but  are  mutually  exclusive  and 
destructive  of  each  other.  In  other  words,  to  be- 
lieve that  God  unites  himself  with  us,  when  we  are 
inwardly  and  mentally  conscious  of  hostility  to  him, 
is  to  believe  in  contradictions.  Belief,  therefore, 
must  not  only  exist  in  reference  to  its  appropriate 
object,  namely,  a  God  who  is  not  only  righteous,  but 
is  recognized  as  righteous  by  ourselves  ;  but  in  taking 
a  direction  which  will  receive  him  into  the  intimacies 
of  living  and  personal  friendship,  it  must  be  a  faith 
which  will  antecedently  demand  and  will  secure,  as 
it  gradually  struggles  into  existence,  all  those  con- 
ditions of  repentance  and  spiritual  renovation  which 
render  such  a  great  result  possible. 


RELATION  OF  FAITH  TO  SALVATION.        22  7 

6. — Such  are  some  of  the  relations  and  applica- 
tions of  faith  in  the  matter  of  salvation.  They  are 
worthy  of  serious  attention,  and  in  their  application 
involve  some  of  the  most  important  acts  of  the  soul. 
They  are  not  only  Scriptural  announcements,  and 
entitled  to  acceptance  on  the  ground  of  the  source 
from  which  they  come  ;  but  are  in  harmony  with  the 
laws  of  the  mind,  and  commend  themselves  to  any 
reasonable  philosophy. 


CHAPTER   XXVI. 

Divine  Influences. 

i. — The  doctrine  of  Divine  Influences,  in  other 
words  that  men  are  susceptible  of  being  inwardly 
taught  and  guided  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  and  that 
such  teaching  and  guidance  is  a  part  of  the  spiritual 
and  religious  economy  of  the  Universe,  is  a  doctrine 
not  only  historically  illustrated  and  confirmed  in  the 
ancient  books  of  many  nations,  but  is  agreeable  to 
the  highest  thought  and  reasonings  of  men,  and 
therefore  properly  takes  its  place  among  the  doc- 
trines of  the  Absolute  Religion.  Setting  aside  for 
the  present  the  historical  argument,  which  may  be 
regarded  as  highly  confirmatory,  and  looking  at  the 
subject  in  the  light  of  intuition  and  reasoning  alone, 
we  may  remark,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  doctrine 
of  divine  influences  flows  naturally  and  necessarily 
from  the  fact,  which  we  suppose  now  to  be  recog- 
nized and  established,  of  the  existence  of  God.  God 
exists.  And  his  existence  as  God  makes  Him  the 
source  of  existence  to  all  other  beings.     And  it  is 


DIVIDE  INFLUENCES. 


229 


certainly  reasonable  to  say,  that  his  position  as  the 
source  of  being,  entitles  Him  to  the  control,  and  not 
only  gives  the  right  but  imposes  the  duty  of  control, 
over  the  beings  He  has  created.  He  makes  them 
what  they  are  ;  and  it  would  not  be  possible  for  Him 
because  it  would  not  be  right  and  just,  to  relieve 
himself  from  all  responsibility  in  relation  to  them. 
And  responsibility  cannot  be  separated  from  any 
degree  of  guidance  and  control,  which  is  necessary 
to  meet  the  claims  that  the  existing  responsibility 
imposes.  In  a  word  God  creates  and  therefore  He 
rules.  On  this  point  when  it  is  properly  explained, 
there  can  hardly  be  a  difference  of  opinion. 

2. — When  we  come  to  the  subject  of  the  kind  or 
manner  of  the  control  which  he  is  entitled  to  exer- 
cise, and  which  it  is  his  duty  to  exercise,  there  may 
possibly  be  ground  for  some  differences  of  thought. 
We  may  say  however  in  general  terms,  that  the 
manner  of  this  control  must  be  determined  by  a  con- 
sideration of  the  nature  and  relations  of  the  beings 
respectively,  who  govern  on  the  one  hand,  or  are 
governed  on  the  other.  God  is  a  spirit ;  and  man  in 
his  essential  nature  is  a  spirit  also;  and  having  by 
means  of  our  personal  consciousness  gained  some 
knowledge  of  our  own  spiritual  nature,  we  arc  as- 
sisted by  that  knowledge  to  some  extent,  in  gaining 
a  knowledge  of  the  spiritual  nature  of  God.     And  in 


230  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

affirming  the  doctrine  of  Divine  Influences,  the  doc- 
trine of  God  operating  upon  man,  and  of  man,  in  his 
mental  nature  accepting  and  responding  to  the  di- 
vine influence,  we  are  aided  in  meeting  the  problems 
involved  in  the  subject,  by  a  knowledge,  that  it  is 
mind  operating  upon  mind,  and  by  a  just  considera- 
tion and  application  of  known  mental  laws. 

3. — And  accordingly  we  proceed  to  say,  that  the 
exercise  of  divine  influence  is  not  the  application  of 
material  force,  nor  anything  strictly  analogous  to 
material  force,  which  would  obviously  be  inconsis- 
tent with  the  nature  of  mind  ;  but,  so  far  as  we  can 
perceive,  such  divine  influence  is,  and  can  be,  only 
the  application  of  that  mental  force  which  is  lodged 
in  motives.  God  influences  by  setting  motives  be- 
fore us.  If  difficulties  are  to  be  surmounted,  he  sets 
before  us  motives  which  are  fitted  to  increase  our 
courage ;  if  threatening  dangers  are  in  our  way,  he 
sets  before  us  motives  which  are  adapted  to  excite 
our  fears  ;  and  in  the  vast  field  of  human  purpose 
and  action,  he  is  at  no  loss  for  appropriate  sugges- 
tions and  appliances  suited  to  every  possible  occa- 
sion. 

It  is  proper  to  make  the  remark  at  this  point, 
that  God,  in  operating  upon  man  by  means  of  mo- 
tives, never  violates  his  freedom.  Man  is  not  merely 
an    existence   but  a  moral  and  accountable  being; 


DIVINE  INFLUENCES.  23 1 

and  freedom,  placed  beyond  the  reach  of  violation,  is 
one  of  the  attributes  which  constitutes  him  a 
man. 

4. — It  is  not  necessary  for  us,  however,  to  pursue 
the  subject  largely  in  this  direction.  The  great 
topic  before  us,  that  of  the  absolute  and  unchangea- 
ble religion  and  what  is  included  in  it,  renders  it 
more  important  to  affirm  the  fact  than  the  manner 
of  the  fact ;  to  say  what  is  rather  than  Jiow  it  is.  In 
saying,  therefore,  that  there  are  and  must  be  Divine 
Influences,  God  operating  upon  man  and  man  the 
subject  of  the  divine  operation,  we  say  that  which 
is  affirmed  by  human  experience.  And  human  ex- 
perience, considered  in  the  different  aspects  in  which 
it  presents  itself,  '  includes  the  testimony  both  of 
feeling  and  reason.  Eternal  and  unchangeable 
truth,  when  existing  within  the  sphere  of  humanity 
and  having  relation  to  humanity,  is  always  verified 
by  human  intuition.  Intuitional  reason  affirms  the 
influences  of  God.  The  existence  of  such  divine  in 
fluence  is  not  identical  with  its  affirmation  ;  but  the 
affirmation  is  the  out-birth  and  the  revelation  of  the 
existence.  And  it  may  further  be  said,  that  the 
affirmation  brings  the  great  fact  within  the  range 
of  one  of  the  forms  of  human  experience  ;  and  ena 
bles  us  to  recognize  it,  to  speak  of  it,  and  to  rejoice 
in  it. 


232  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

5. — And  this  is  not  all.  The  existence  of  Di- 
vine Influence  upon  the  mind  is  verified  also  by  that 
form  of  experience  which  we  call  feeling.  How 
common  it  is  for  men  to  say,  with  considerable  vari- 
ety of  expression,  that  God  is  near  them  or  that  He 
impresses  them  or  that  he  is  within  them.  Men  af- 
firm the  thing,  not  merely  because  it  is  intuitionally 
perceived,  on  the  ground  that  it  is  because  it  cannot 
be  otherwise,  but  because  they  feel  it  to  be  so. 
The  emotions  or  sentiments  have  a  voice  as  well  as 
the  perceptions ;  and  although  the  utterance  is  dif- 
ferent in  form,  it  is  the  same  in  meaning.  The  his- 
tory of  the  churches,  the  history  of  individuals,  the 
testimony  which  is  given  by  persons  in  all  situations, 
from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  is  in  harmony  with 
this  statement,  that  divine  influences  are  experienced 
and  recognized  in  the  inward  feeling. 

6. — In  a  recently  published  work  on  Mental 
Philosophy,  I  have  referred  to  the  doctrine  of  divine 
influences  in  the  following  terms ;  with  the  intro- 
duction of  which  here,  I  leave  the  subject,  which  is 
one  of  great  practical  importance  to  the  reflections 
of  the  reader. 

The  susceptibility  of  inspiration  from  higher 
sources  is  not  merely,  as  some  may  perhaps  suppose, 
a  theological  dogmatism,  but  is  one  of  the  great  and 


DIVINE  INFLUENCES.  233 

precious  facts  of  humanity.  God  never  ignores  the 
sublime  truth  of  his  universal  Fatherhood,  and  has 
never  released  his  connection  with  any  of  the  tribes 
of  men.  He  utters  his  voice  everywhere.  Homer, 
Plato,  Euripides,  Cicero,  Livy  and  Plutarch,  as  well 
as  the  long  record  of  those  whose  inspirational  his- 
tory has  given  lustre  and  power  to  the  unequalled 
pages  of  the  Bible,  have  recognized  the  fact,  that 
man  in  the  weaknesses  and  ignorance  incidental  to 
his  finite  nature,  is  susceptible  of  strength  and  guid- 
ance from  the  Infinite. 

But  these  results  are  reached  through  law.  The 
conditions  of  inspirational  receptivity,  at  least  those 
which  are  leading  and  indispensable,  arc  three. 
First,  Faith  in  this  great  fact,  that  there  is  thus  an 
open  door  of  communication  between  God  and  man  ; 
second,  a  sincere  desire  that  God,  who  never  violates 
our  freedom,  will  by  means  of  his  inspirational  influ- 
ences come  into  communication  with  us  ;  and  third, 
a  freedom  from  all  biases  and  prejudices  of  self-will, 
— in  other  words,  unselfishness.  Under  such  cir- 
cumstances, the  human  mind  in  virtue  of  the  un- 
changeable laws  of  its  being,  is  susceptible  of  being 
reached,  instructed,  and  guided.  Nothing  is  more 
important  to  man  than  such  guidance.  And  the 
mental    susceptibility   (not    exclusively,    but    much 


234  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

more  than  some  other  of  our  mental  powers,)  which 
is  open  to  divine  influences,  and  which  turns  to 
catch  the  inspirational  suggestions  of  God,  is  the 
Intuitional  power. 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 

Explanation   of  existing  practical  Methods   of 
Teaching. 

I. — If  the  Christian  religion,  it  will  be  said  by 
some,  has  thus  a  philosophical  basis  and  is  in  fact 
the  absolute  and  eternal  religion,  why  should  it  not 
in  the  first  instance,  and  always,  be  presented  in  that 
light,  instead  of  being  presented  and  pressed  upon 
men  in  the  way  in  which  it  commonly  is.  In  other 
words,  admitting  that  the  Gospel  is  a  philosophy,  in 
the  sense  of  having  a  philosophical  and  permanent 
foundation,  it  is  objected,  that  it  is  not  proclaimed 
and  preached  as  a  philosophy.  And  it  is  intimated 
and  urged  in  relation  to  the  method  of  teaching  it, 
that  it  ought  to  be  otherwise  than  it  is. 

2. — The  answer  to  this  objection  is  this.  There 
is  a  great  difference  between  philosophy,  whether  it 
be  the  philosophy  of  religion  or  any  other  form  of 
philosophy,  in  itself  considered,  and  in  the  essential- 
ness  of  its  own  nature,  and  the  mode  or  manner  of 
teaching  such  philosophy  to  those  who  have  hith- 


236  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

erto  not  received  it.  The  truth  is  always  the  same  ; 
and  philosophy,  when  we  discriminate  between  the 
semblance  and  the  substance,  can  never  be  a  varia- 
tion from  the  truth  ;  but  the  capacity  of  receiving 
the  truth  in  all  its  length  and  breadth  is  not  always 
the  same.  There  is  a  great  difference  in  this  re- 
spect ;  and  the  method  of  teaching,  if  it  be  a  true 
and  available  method,  will  have  relation  not  only  to 
the  thing  taught,  but  to  the  present  condition  and 
the  capacity  of  receiving  on  the  part  of  those  to 
whom  instruction  is  to  be  communicated.  The  ge- 
ometries of  Euclid  and  Legendre  and  the  physical 
philosophy  of  Newton,  at  least  in  its  mathematical 
principles,  are  the  eternal  truth ;  they  stand  the 
same  from  age  to  age ;  but  the  method  of  teaching, 
including  the  times  and  manner  of  teaching,  is  not 
identical  with  the  thing  taught ;  and  it  is  well 
known,  that  we  do  not  teach  geometries  and  other 
forms  of  the  higher  mathematics  to  children,  be- 
cause there  are  other  things  more  fitted  to  their  yet 
weak  and  undeveloped  capacity,  and  which  may  be 
considered  as  preparatory  to  the  reception  of  the 
higher  and  more  abstruse  forms  of  truth. 

3. — And  somewhat  in  accordance  with  this  view, 
the  preacher  who  has  God  for  his  guide  in  the  in- 
structions he  gives,  will  first  address  men  in  accor- 
dance with  the  facts  in  the  case,  namely,  as  being  in 


EXIS  TING  ME  TIIOD  S  OF  TEA  CHING.  237 

the  first  form  of  life,  or  that  form  which  we  have  de- 
nominated self-hood,  and  as  being  the  subjects  of 
all  those  errors  and  sins,  which  must  necessarily  re- 
sult from  a  continuance  of  that  form  of  life,  to  the 
rejection  of  the  light  and  truth  of  a  higher  form  of 
life.  In  other  words,  the  first  object  of  the  true 
preacher,  taking  men  as  he  finds  them,  in  the  posses- 
sion not  only  of  an  outward  written  law,  but  of  a 
law  written  upon  the  heart  and  yet  living  in  the 
violation  of  that  law,  will  be  to  convince  them  of  sin. 
And  having  secured  this,  the  second  object,  other- 
wise they  would  be  left  "in  the  condition  of  misery 
which  always  results  from  a  consciousness  of  sin,  will 
be  to  disclose  to  them  the  possibility  and  the 
method  of  forgiveness.  And  therefore  he  points 
the  sinner  to  Jesus;  in  other  words  to  God  "  mani- 
fest in  the  flesh;"  to  God  brought  within  the  limits 
of  humanity  and  revealed  in  his  essential  nature, 
and  earnestly  desiring  the  return  of  sinners  to  Him- 
self. 

4. — But  this  view  of  God  revealed  to  man  in  the 
infinitude  of  his  love,  of  God  clothed  in  humanity 
and  in  humanity  suffering  upon  the  Cross,  will  be 
of  no  avail  (such  are  the  laws  of  the  mind  that  it  is 
not  possible  that  it  should  be  of  any  avail,)  without 
faith  or  belief.  And  hence  it  is,  that  the  preacher 
of  the   Gospel  who  is  divinely  guided,  having  first 


238  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

pressed  the  fact  of  sin,  is  led  now  to  press  with 
equal  earnestness  the  matter  of  faith.  If  the  sinner 
fully  believes  in  God  as  a  God  of  forgiveness  and 
love,  which  he  is  enabled  to  do  only  by  directing 
his  thoughts  to  the  great  and  wonderful  facts,  which 
make  up  the  history  of  the  incarnation  and  the 
Cross,  then  the  misery  attendant  upon  his  trans- 
gression passes  away ;  and  so  far  as  forgiveness  is 
concerned,  he  becomes  reconciled  to  God. 

5. — And  then,  without  undertaking  to  narrate 
minutely  all  the  steps  in  the  process,  the  question 
arises  in  the  mind  of  the  reconciled  offender,  how  is 
it  possible  for  me  to  be  kept  in  the  right  path  in 
the  future.  And  accordingly  the  preacher,  pursu- 
ing the  true  logical  method  by  harmonizing  his 
instructions  with  the  condition  and  wants  and  re- 
ceptivity of  the  sinner,  reminds  him  again  of  the 
universality  of  the  law, — a  law  not  only  extending 
to  all  existences,  but  necessary  and  eternal  and  uni- 
versal in  its  obligations, — and  teaches  him,  that  its 
claims  can  be  met  only  in  one  way,  namely,  by 
placing  his  freedom  and  power  of  will, — not  annul- 
ling them  but  freely  placing  them,  in  the  keeping 
and  guidance  of  the  divine  will ;  and  thus  virtually 
and  practically,  and  yet  with  no  loss  of  his  own  per- 
sonality and  freedom,  making  himself  one  with  God. 

6. — It  is  only  when  the  mind  is  brought  to  this 


EXISTING  METHODS  OF  TEACHING.  239 

position  that  it  learns,  (and  it  learns  it  then  from  its 
own  inward  experience,)  that  the  Christian  religion, 
as  full  of  wisdom  as  it  is  of  mercy  and  love,  is  the 
true  and  the  only  Absolute  Religion. 

And  it  may  be  added  here,  that  it  is  important 
for  various  reasons  to  remember,  that  the  path  of 
religious  knowledge,  when  it  aims  at  the  foundation 
of  things,  is  in  this  direction,  and  can  be  found  no- 
where else.  Obey  and  learn.  Be  ye  followers  of 
Christ,  that  ye  may  know  the  truths  of  Christ. 
Open  thine  eye  to  the  light,  that  thou  may- 
est  see  the  things  that  the  light  reveals.  When 
the  soul  has  experimentally  gone  through  with  the 
spiritual  processes,  which  the  unchangeable  truth  re- 
quires, it  will  be  found  that  this  experimental  knowl- 
edge will  reveal  and  establish,  beyond  the  power  of 
any  argument  antecedent  to  such  experience,  not 
only  the  truth  itself,  but  the  immovable  rock  of  its 
eternal  foundation. 

7. — Go  on,  then,  preachers  of  the  Gospel  and  all 
who  labor  for  the  extension  of  the  truth,  surrounded 
as  you  are  by  those  who  arc  in  ways  of  darkness  and 
error,  and  proclaim  to  them  their  sin  in  order  that 
they  may  be  convinced  of  sin.  Proclaim  to  them 
repentance,  which  includes  not  only  a  knowledge  of 
sin,  but  sorrow  for  sin,  and  a  change  from  sin.  And 
as  all  sin,  whatever  its  specific   form,  is,  in  its   rela- 


240  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

tions  and  ultimate  results,  a  sin  against  God ;  pro- » 
claim  God,  not  in  the  first  instance  in  the  universality 
and  incomprehensibleness  of  his  existence,  but  God 
"  manifested  in  Christ "  and  thus  brought  into  the 
intimacy  of  human  relations,  as  ready  and  will- 
ing to  forgive.  Proclaim  not  only  the  fact  and  free- 
ness  of  this  great  forgiveness,  but  also  and  with  all 
the  holy  earnestness  which  is  appropriate  to  your 
divine  ministry,  the  fact  of  simple  faith,  as  the  only 
possible  means  by  which  such  forgiveness  can  be 
practically  recognized  and  made  available  as  a  prin- 
ciple of  renovation  to  the  soul.  Proclaim  and  show 
the  necessity  of  the  constant  presence  and  in-dwell- 
ing of  the  Spirit  of  God.  Proclaim  the  absolute  sur- 
render of  the  human  will  to  the  divine  will,  as  neces- 
sary to  continuous  and  universal  obedience  and  to 
the  removal  of  all  obstacles  to  the  operation  of  God's 
spirit.  Proclaim  union  with  God,  even  as  Christ  and 
God  are  one,  as  the  great  practical  and  unchange- 
able result  of  divine  teachings  when  fully  received 
and  realized. 

And  thus  shall  it  be  seen  and  known,  when  the 
soul  has  ascended  as  it  were  after  the  manner  of 
Jacob's  ladder  by  successive  steps,  to  the  mount  of 
angelic  vision,  that  the  great  plan  of  salvation  which 
annihilates  sin  by  a  love  that  has  its  expression  in 
letters  of  blood,  and  which  attracts  and  consolidates 


EXISTING  METHODS  OF  TEACHING.  24 1 

human  freedom  with  the  harmonies  of  the   univer- 
sal will,  is  not  a  mere  dogmatism,  but  ascending  far 
beyond   and  above  the   contingencies   of  time  and 
place,  is  absolute,  universal  and  eternal. 
11 


.CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

Contrasted  Views  of  the  Selfish  and  Essential  Life. 

The  world  is  man,  or  rather  is  humanity.  And 
man  is  not  a  man  except  in'  virtue  of  possessing  in 
himself  what  may  be  called  a  motive  power.  Such  a 
power, — such  an  innate  motivity, — is  a  necessity, 
(that  is  to  say,  a  necessary  or  indispensable  condi- 
tion) of  the  existence  of  all  intelligent  and  active 
beings.  This  is  undoubtedly  one  of  the  affirmations 
of  man's  intuitive  intellect,— of  the  mind  in  its  sug- 
gestive or  spontaneous  action  ;  an  affirmation  which 
utters  itself  in  all  men's  hearts,  and  which  therefore 
carries  with  it  an  universal  consent.  And  so  far 
philosophy  harmonizes  with  religion.  Man  lives 
because  he  has  power  to  live ;  and  the  nature  of  his 
life  will  be  according  to  the  nature  of  that  power. 

If  we  look  at  man's  history  from  this  point  of 
view,  we  shall  get  a  glimpse  of  the  outlines  of  suc- 
cessive dispensations.  In  what  is  often  called  his 
natural  state,  man  finds  that  internal  and  impulsive 
energy  which  constitutes  the  soul's  life,-*or  at  least 


VIEWS  OF  SELFISH  AND  ESSENTIAL  LIFE.     243 

this  is  generally  and  almost  universally  the  case, — 
in  the  attractions  of  sensual  pleasure,  in  the  obstina- 
cies of  pride,  in  the  aspirations  of  ambition,  in  the 
hostilities  of  revenge,  and  in  the  ever-grasping  de- 
sire of  possession  and  accumulation.  He  is  born 
into  the  finite  ; — and  his  first  idea  is,  (and  it  could 
not  well  be  otherwise,)  to  live  in  the  finite; — that  is 
to  say,  to  live  for  himself.  He  is  his  own  world. 
In  that  world  he  lives;  and  from  it  he  lives ;  and 
his  object  is  not  to  diminish  it  by  imparting  to  oth- 
ers, but  on  the  contrary,  though  at  the  expense  of 
jealousy  and  strife,  to  increase  and  strengthen  it  by 
adding  whatever  he  can.  And  as  society  cannot  be 
separated  from  the  units  which  compose  it,  there- 
fore the  man  individual  is  the  precise  representa- 
tive, the  type  or  form,  of  the  man  social.  And 
therefore  the  leading  characteristic  of  the  first  dis- 
pensation is  SELFISM.  And  sclfism  is  necessarily 
antagonism.  He  who  lives  to  himself,  does  not 
live  to  others ;  and  not  living  to  others  as  he  lives 
to  himself,  and  for  himself,  he  is  necessarily  separat- 
ed from  them  in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  and  be- 
comes antagonistical.  Everywhere  there  is  distrust, 
jealousy,  pride,  anger,  lust,  revenge,  cruelty,  and 
every  evil  thing  which  imagination  can  conceive. 
This  is  man's  first  development,  the  first  historical 
fact  which  the  early  records  of  every  nation  and  peo- 


244  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

pie  distinctly  declare.  This  is  what  is  read  in  the 
histories  of  the  savage  tribes  of  North  America.* 

This  is  what  is  read,  if  we  look  deeply  into  the 
motives  of  the  actors,  in  the  Homeric  poems,  and  in 
the  historical  fragments  and  the  traditions,  as  we 
find  them  in  Niebuhr,  which  give  us  a  view  of  the 
early  states  of  Italy.  This  is  the  sad  and  humiliat- 
ing story,  which  I  have  myself  seen  and  read,  as  it 
has  stood  through  long  generations,  sculptured  in 
the  walls  of  the  enduring  temples  of  Thebes.  Such 
is  the  historical  truth  that  has  been  dug  up  also 
from  the  buried  cities  of  the  Tigris  and  the  Euphra- 
tes. 

The  nations  which  existed  antecedent  to  the 
time  of  Moses,  and  in  the  regions  through  which  he 
led  the  Hebrews,  are  illustrations  of  this  statement; 
— the  Amalekites,  the  Moabites,  the  Ammonites, 
and  also  the  cities,  tribes,  and  states  which  inhabit- 
ed Palestine,  and  the  Philistine  country,  and  the  an- 
cient Phoenicia. 

This  first  dispensation,  which  we  will  here  call 
the  dispensation  of  selfism,  was  modified,  in  the 
course  of  time  and  in  some  respects  elevated,  by  a 
high  civilization.     It  was  the   result  of  selfishness, 

*  Numberless  volumes  might  be  referred  to.  Perhaps  there  is 
none  more  terribly  instructive  than  the  recently  published  Life  of 
Beckwith. 


VIEWS  OF  SELFISH  AND  ESSENTIAL  LIFE.     245 

directing  its  agriculture  and  its  commerce  to  the 
one  great  object  of  accumulation,  that  it  should  ac- 
quire wealth.  And  wealth  in  its  turn  brought  leis- 
ure, luxury,  a  false  refinement,  and  the  polite  arts. 
But  nothing  was  altered  in  its  essential  nature. 
Selfishness  was  at  the  root.  Selfishness  was  at  the 
heart.  Selfishness  was  everywhere.  Refinement 
and  art  threw  around  it  some  semblance  of  beauty ; 
but  it  was  only  the  beauty  of  the  sculptured  monu- 
ment, which  conceals  the  death  and  corruption  be- 
neath it.  Thus  Tyre  and  Sidon,  and  Nineveh  and 
Babylon,  and  Memphis  and  Thebes,  and  Athens 
and  Rome,  with  all  their  wealth  and  arts,  were  es- 
sentially under  the  same  condemnation  with  the 
corrupt  and  degraded  cities  and  nations  which  had 
perished  before  them. 

There  are  and  can  be  only  two  essential  or  real 
dispensations,  having  a  definite  and  fixed  character ; 
— that  which  has  its  centre  and  its  power  of  life  in 
the  individual  or  the  limited,  and  that  which  has  its 
centre  in  God  or  the  universal.  The  dispensation 
of  external  law,  which  is  incidental  to  the  first,  is 
not  an  essential,  but  an  accessory  dispensation; — 
which,  however,  has  its  place,  its  history,  and  its 
value.  Although  in  the  progressive  development  of 
existences,  it  was  necessary  that  the  attribute  of  free- 
dom should  be  given  to  man, — a  real  and  not  merely 


246 


ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 


an  apparent  freedom, — yet  the  Divine  Goodness 
could  not  allow,  and  the  rights  of  freedom  could  not 
justly  claim,  that  it  should  be  permitted  to  men  to 
do  injury  to  others.  In  other  words,  although  their 
freedom  involved  the  fact  or  rather  the  possibility  of 
their  doing  injustice,  yet  it  would  be  right  in  God, 
and  would  be  incumbent  upon  Him,  to  restrict  all 
such  unjust  tendencies  by  a  dispensation  of  law  and 
of  the  penalties  of  law.  Now  the  freedom  of  self- 
ishness is  the  freedom  of  destruction. 

And  the  world,  with  freedom  for  its  opportunity 
and  selfishness  for  its  motive  power,  became  a  great 
slaughter-house, — an  Aceldama, — so  much  so  that  a 
dispensation  of  external  law,  marking  in  many  cases 
the  precise  boundaries  between  right  and  wrong,  be- 
came a  great  necessity.  The  same  love  which 
granted  freedom,  imposed  law  ;  in  order  that  free- 
dom might  not  degenerate  into  license  and  ruin. 
And  hence  came  that  marked  fact  in  the  world's 
history, — the  legal  or  Sinai  dispensation  ; — a  dispen- 
sation which  is  not  antagonistical  to  freedom,  but 
only  to  freedom  degenerating  into  license.  The 
central  expression  of  law,  in  its  restriction  of  man's 
destructive  selfishness,  w7as  at  Mount  Sinai.  Exter- 
nal law  is  always  terrible,  because  it  is  always  antag- 
onistical. It  stands  with  a  drawn  sword  ; — it  holds  in 
its  hand  a  flame  of  fire.     And  therefore"  the  place 


VIEWS  OF  SELFISH  AND  ESSENTIAL  LIFE.     247 

and  the  circumstances  of  its  announcement  were 
well  adapted  to  what  was  announced ; — to  a  people 
who  were  prepared  for  it  by  experience  and  instruc- 
tion, and  who  were  selected  as  the  medium  through 
which  it  was  to  be  communicated  to  others  ; — in  a 
"  waste  howling  wilderness,"  their  tents  spread  upon 
the  sand,  with  rocks  and  mountains  rising  all  around 
them ;  amid  blackness,  and  storms,  and  thunder. 
Simultaneously  and  sympathetically,  throughout  the 
world,  as  we  may  well  suppose,  (for  God's  heart  is 
one  heart,  and  God's  people  are  one  people,  and 
what  he  does  for  one  he  does  for  all,)  the  law  en- 
graven distinctly  on  the  Sinai  tables,  was  engraven 
also,  (with  various  degrees  perhaps  of  distinctness, 
corresponding  to  their  privileges  and  lights)  upon  the 
tables  of  the  human  soul.  The  universe  is  a  whole 
— the  head  inseparable  from  the  foot, — and  nothing 
which  is  great  and  essential  can  take  place  in  one 
heart,  without  reaching  and  affecting  sympathetically 
all  the  others.  The  thunder  of  Sinai  echoed  through 
the  world  ;  because  it  was  the  voice  of  that  God 
who  is  the  life  of  humanity.  Everywhere  by  means 
of  an  increased  light  opened  in  the  conscience,  and 
by  means  of  moral  teachers  raised  up  in  different 
lands,  were  the  sentiments  of  justice  developed  in 
opposition  to  selfishness  ;  and  the  prevalence  of  vio- 
lence and  cruelty  was  in  a  degree  checked.      And 


248  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

hence  it  is  said  by  the  apostle  Paul,  that  the  heathen 
to  whom  the  Sinai  law  was  not  in  the  first  instance 
expressly  communicated,  but  who  nevertheless  re- 
ceived something  of  its  substance,  by  means  of  those 
interior  and  magnetic  currents  which  everywhere 
connect  man  with  humanity,  were  "  a  law  to  them- 
selves, which  show  the  work  (or  working)  of  the  law 
written  upon  their  hearts." 

But  the  same  Apostle, — a  man  who  had  both 
great  natural  and  great  inspired  light,  says  in  another 
place,  that  the  law  "  makes  nothing  perfect."  And 
the  reason  is,  because  the  law  is  not  a  life  but  a  re- 
striction ;  not  a  power  but  a  chain.  It  makes  noth- 
ing perfect,  though  it  may  be  true  that  it  shuts  up 
and  limits  the  downward  progress  of  imperfection. 
The  law,  however,  may  be  of  great  value,  because 
if  it  does  not  give  life,  it  may  yet  prevent  ruin. 
And  if  the  legal  dispensation  is  incidental  to  the 
first  or  selfish  dispensation,  it  is  also  transitional  to 
the  last  dispensation  or  the  dispensation  of  univer- 
sal love.  And  hence,  it  is  that  the  same  Apostle 
says,  that  the  law,  which  is  the  same  as  the  legal 
dispensation,  is  the  schoolmaster,  which  brings  us 
to  Christ.  And  there  is  great  truth  in  this,  even 
when  examined  by  the  light  of  mere  human  reason. 
The  pervertedly  natural  or  selfish  man  sees  things 
from  the  light  of  his  own  selfish  centre.     His  desire 


VIEWS  OF  SELFISH  AND  ESSENTIAL  LIFE.     249 

to  include  everything  in  himself  is  so  strong,  that  it 
seems  to  him  to  be  right.  He  is,  as  the  Scriptures 
represent  him,  blind.  And  God  in  his  goodness  has 
placed  him  under  law,  that  he  might  not  destroy 
himself,  and  that  he  might  not  destroy  others.  But 
this  is  not  all.  The  same  law  which  preserves  him 
in  his  blindness  from  these  injurious  results,  is  also  a 
teacher.  It  puts  him  in  a  new  and  effective  school. 
It  opens  the  eyes  of  his  understanding.  It  is  by 
means  of  the  external  law,  operating  through  the 
inward  law  of  the  conscience,  that  he  sees  where  he 
is,  and  what  he  has  done,  and  where  he  is  going. 
Under  the  law  he  is  still  a  selfish  man  ;  but  he  is  a 
restrained  or  regulated  selfish  man.  The  legal  dis- 
pensation is  transitional,  it  gives  light ;  it  is  mixed 
in  its  results  ;  it  is  a  necessity  ;  but  still  it  is  true,  as  the 
Apostle  says,  that  it  completes  nothing ;  it  u  makes 
nothing  perfect."  The  light  or  knowledge  which  it 
gives  is  the  revelation  of  the  utter  deformity  and  in- 
sufficiency of  the  first  or  selfish  dispensation.  It  also 
gives  light  in  the  other  direction,  by  indicating 
though  imperfectly,  the  character  of  that  other  dis- 
pensation which  is  to  take  its  place. 

Let  us  look  again  at  the  expression  of  Paul,  that 
the  law  or  legal  dispensation  is  a  schoolmaster  or 
teacher,  which  is  to  bring  us  to  Christ.  And  here 
the    first    question    is,    who    is    Christ,    or    what    is 


250  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

Christ?  To  the  ancient  patriarchs  and  prophets 
Christ  was  the  man  who  was  to  come.  To  the  dis- 
ciples and  apostles  at  a  later  period,  Christ  was  the 
man  who  did  come.  To  those  who  close  their  eye 
to  the  form  in  order  to  be  more  receptive  of  the 
substance,  Christ  is  not  alone  the  Christ-man  but 
the  Christ-spirit.  And  the  Christ-spirit  embodied 
in  one  word  is  love.  It  seeks  not  the  good  of  one 
merely,  but  of  all. 

To  seek  the  outward  Christ  is  well,  but  to  stop 
there  is  not  well.  The  kingdom  of  God  is  within 
you.  I  speak  from  my  own  experience.  I  wanted 
Christ  in  the  form.  I  wished  to  take  him  by  the 
hand,  and  like  the  unbelieving  Thomas  of  earlier 
days,  to  see  the  prints  of  the  nails  and  to  thrust  my 
hand  into  his  side.  But  he  would  not  thus  be  seen 
by  me.  But  I  hear  a  voice,  and  it  says,  "  here  I 
am;"  and  it  says  again,  "I  am  He."  It  is  thine 
inward  eye  that  shall  see  me ;  thine  inward  ear  that 
shall  hear  me. 

And  I  said,  Lord,  how  can  this  be.  And  he  an- 
swered it  was  thus  I  told  my  disciples,  "I  am  with 
you  always  even  to  the  end  of  the  world."  No 
longer  look  for  me  in  the  outward  form,  and  thou 
shalt  find  me  in  the  inward  spirit.  The  form  is  lim- 
ited, and  belongs  to  one.  The  spirit  is  universal, 
and  belongs  to  all.     I  am  not  with  one  of  my  disci- 


VIE  WS  OF  SELFISH  AND  ESSENTIAL  FIFE. 


251 


pies  only,  but  with  all ; — and  in  all  places  and  in  all 
time,  I  yet  live  and  am  still  a  channel  of  the  truth 
to  all  who  are  ready  to  receive  it.  Ye  are  the  re- 
cipients ;  I  am  the  giver  of  that  which  ye  receive. 
Ye  are  the  form  ;  I  am  the  substance.  The  forms 
arc  many  ;  but  the  substance  is  one.  If  I  were 
present  in  a  personal  form,  as  I  was  once,  and  con- 
tinued to  be  present  in  such  a  form,  I  should  be 
limited,  and  should  be  present  to  one  or  at  most  to 
a  few.  In  my  earthly  form  I  was  intimate  with  my 
twelve  disciples,  and  with  Lazarus  and  with  Mary 
and  Martha,  and  a  few  women  from  Galilee.  But 
now  I  belong  to  humanity.  Oh  my  Father,  all 
mine  are  thine  ;  and  thine  are  mine.  Oh  men,  ye 
are  the  form ;  I  am  the  substance.  If  ye  need  me 
and  seek  me  in  the  form  ;  then  seek  me  and  find  me 
in  yourself. 

It  is  thus  we  reach  the  great  distinction  between 
the  first  or  legal  dispensation  and  the  second  dispen- 
sation, the  incarnation  of  Christ,  or,  in  other  words 
of  that  love  which  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  Law.  The 
time  is  hastening,  when  the  true  Christ-spirit  will 
•become  incarnated  in  multitudes  who  will  walk  the 
earth  ;  each  a  John,  a  Mary,  each  bearing  his  own 
name,  and  filling  his  own  place,  but  each  a  member 
of  that  holy  family  of  which  Jesus  Christ  the  Son  of 
Mary  and  the  Son  of  God  is  the   Elder   Brother. 


252 


ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 


When  the  impersonal  Christ  is  born  into  the  world 
in  the  fulness  of  his  nature,  the  rights  and  sacred- 
ness  of  woman  who  is  the  virgin  mother  will  be  un- 
derstood and  acknowledged.  The  incipient  sign 
having  relation  to  woman's  position  has  already- 
been  given.  Without  woman,  without  the  aid  of 
the  sympathies  which  are  connatural  to  her  affec- 
tionate nature,  He  could  not  and  cannot  be  born 
into  the  world.  Born  of  woman  once  he  is  born  of 
woman  forever.  The  truth  of  Christ  dying  for  us 
without  the  other  great  truth  of  Christ  living  in  us. 
leaves  man  out  of  the  sphere  of  the  Divine  Unity, 
and  in  a  state  of  perpetual  orphanage. 

In  giving  utterance  to  the  truths  and  principles 
which  are  now  inspired  within  us,  and  which  indi- 
cate our  present  position  and  purposes,  we  lay  no 
bonds  upon  the  future  ; — we  do  not  attempt  with 
audacious  hands  to  steady  the  divine  Ark  by  plac- 
ing chains  upon  the  endless  unfoldings  of  unlimited 
Intelligence  and  Love; — but  on  the  contrary  think 
it  important  to  proclaim  distinctly,  and  as  a  thing 
which  involves  man's  highest  happiness,  that  we  be- 
lieve in  light  added  to  light,  in  truth  added  to  truth, 
appropriate  to  each  added  moment  of  time,  to  each 
added  variation  of  circumstances,  and  to  each  as- 
cending step  in  the  soul's  unlimited  progressional 
being. 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 

Mediatorialism  as  a  universal  and  practical  Principle. 

I. — In  the  posthumous  work  of  Frederic  Sec- 
ond of  Prussia,  entitled,  "  The  History  of  my  own 
Times,"  is  the  following  passage.  After  stating 
that  Locke  and  Bayle  had  in  part  loosened  and  torn 
asunder  the  bandages  of  error,  he  adds:  "  Other 
sages  also  have  appeared  ;  such  as  Fontenelle  and 
Voltaire  in  France ;  the  celebrated  Thomasius  in 
Germany;  Hobbes,  Collins,  Shaftesbury,  and  Bol- 
ingbroke  in  England.  These  great  men  and  their 
disciples  have  given  religion  a  mortal  blozv."  Such, 
in  the  time  of  Frederic  the  Great,  as  he  is  com- 
monly designated,  was  the  opinion  of  many.  And 
indeed  it  is  the  opinion  of  many  to  this  day,  that 
philosophy  is  antagonistical  to  religion  ;  that  reli- 
gion is  destitute  of  a  philosophic  basis;  and  that  its 
great  and  saving  truths  are  likely  to  be  unsettled 
and  overthrown  by  the  repeated  and  heavy  assaults 
which  philosophy  makes  upon  them.  So  far  from 
accepting   such  an   opinion,  we  cannot   doubt  that 


254 


ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 


philosophic  inquiries,  conducted  with  patience  and 
candor,  will  ultimately  show  a  very  different  result ; 
and  that  philosophy,  in  the  completion  and  just  ex- 
ercise of  its  own  accepted  cognitive  methods,  will 
be  found  standing  strongly  in  the  explanation  and 
defence  of  religion,- and  not  in  antagonism  to  it.  If 
it  is  admitted  that  religion,  in  being  subjected  to  a 
philosophical  analysis,  is  not  explainable  by  the 
speculations  of  Hobbes  and  Condillac  and  of  others 
of  the  so-called  Materialistic  School,  some  of  whom 
are  mentioned  by  the  Prussian  king ;  and  if  its  prob- 
lems are  beyond  the  mastery  of  Fichte  and  Schell- 
ing  and  Hegel  of  a  later  day,  and  others  who  are 
their  disciples  or  opposers,  yet  in  the  progress  of 
time  and  in  the  necessary  combination  of  the  Sen- 
suous and  Super-sensuous  philosophical  Schools, 
and  with  the  added  light  which  is  gently  breaking 
from  above  in  the  profound  teachings  of  Christ  in 
the  soul,  the  depths  of  religion,  except  so  far  as 
they  are  necessarily  beyond  the  reach  of  finite  fac- 
ulties, will  at  last  be  fathomed,  and  its  mysteries  ex- 
plained and  made  clear. 

2. — The  subject  of  this  chapter  is  Mediatorialism  ; 
a  subject  which  cannot  be  mentioned  without  at 
once  leading  our  thoughts  to  Christ  as  the  embodi- 
ment of  the  mediatorial  principle.  Mediatorialism 
is  the  name  of  the  principle  ;  Mediator  is  the  name 


MEDIA  TORIALISM. 


255 


of  the  person  or  being  mediating.  And  as  media- 
torship  can  exist  practically  and  personally,  only  on 
the  basis  of  a  mediatorial  principle  or  truth  antece- 
dently existing,  the  whole  subject  comes  within  the 
sphere  and  the  recognitions  of  philosophy.  In 
other  words  it  is  a  part  of  the  Absolute  Religion. 

It  is  conceded  to  the  claims  of  philosophy,  that 
one  of  its  functions  is  to  deal  with  principles,  in  dis- 
tinction from  forms  and  manifestations;  including 
the  relation  of  principles,  whatever  they  may  be,  to 
their  results.  Philosophy,  in  the  higher  and  diviner 
sense,  which  is  the  only  true  sense,  so  far  from  be- 
ing at  war  with  the  massive  and  truly  glorious  dog- 
matisms of  Christianity,  shows  the  divinity  of  the 
wisdom  which  gives  them  their  dogmatic  form  and 
place  ;  and  also  defends  them  in  the  eternity  and 
necessity  of  their  subjective  foundations. 

3. — This  subject  presents  itself  in  various  as- 
pects. Mediatorialism  in  its  results  is  giving.  To 
give,  implies  gifts  in  possession  and  as  there  is  but 
one  original  source  or  fountain  of  such  gifts,  to  give 
is  primarily  and  eminently  the  prerogative  of  God. 
To  give,  inasmuch  as  God  would  not  be  God  with- 
out giving,  is  an  eternal  Truth  ;  the  spirit  of  giving 
is  the  eternal  Life ;  and  mediatorialism,  which  is 
based  upon  the  fact  of  innumerable  diversities  in- 
volving innumerable  wants,  is  the  WAV,  by  means 


256 


ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 


of  which  the  Life  carries  the  Truth  into  effect.  It 
is  in  this  sense  that  Christ  is  called  the  Way,  as 
well  as  the  Truth  and  the  Life.  Standing  in  the 
relation  of  God  "  manifested  in  the  flesh  "  or  the 
God-man,  and  thus  harmonizing  mentally  and  physi- 
cally with  the  attributes  of  the  race,  he  stands  in  the 
position  of  the  distributive  channel  of  the  measure- 
less infinitudes  of  God  into  the  finite  measurements 
of  all  subordinate  existences.  Mediatorialism  is  an 
unalterable  law.  The  Cross  as  a  principle  and  medi- 
atorialism as  a  principle,  though  the  latter  may  be 
regarded  as  logically  subsequent  in  time,  and  in 
some  sense  subordinate  in  position,  are  connected 
together  in  close  and  inseparable  relationship  as 
means  and  end.  The  goods  of  the  universe,  which 
exist  necessarily  in  God  as  their  source  or  fountain 
are,  by  the  law  of  the  Cross,  to  be  distributed,  and 
to  manifest  themselves  in  their  appropriate  forms 
and  results,  in  all  degrees  of  existence  from  the 
highest  to  the  lowest. 

4. — There  are  some  things  which  are  ultimate, 
and  one  is,  that  the  infinitudes  of  God  could  not  by 
any  conceivable  possibility  find  their  way  into  the 
possession  of  finite  beings,  except  by  methods 
which  recognize  and  harmonize  with  the  fact  of 
their  finiteness.  But  the  way  from  one  to  the  other 
is  founded  in  the  nature  of  things,  and  is  one  of  the 


MEDIA  TORIALISM. 


257 


products  of  "  eternal  generation  ;  "  grand,  mysteri- 
ous, intuitionally  as  well  as  scripturally  revealed,  and 
banishing  forever  all  those  doubts  which  would  sep- 
arate God  from  his  children.  God  the  Absolute  and 
God  manifested  in  the  finite  form,  and  manifested  in 
part  for  this  very  purpose,  are  mediatorially  united 
in  Christ,  and  in  a  way  so  wonderful,  that  He  lays 
one  hand  on  the  great  Infinitude  of  existence,  and 
with  the  other  touches  the  poorest  and  lowest  of 
human  beings ;  and  brings  them  into  each  other's 
presence  ;  and  linking  the  last  with  the  first,  and 
the  highest  with  the  lowest,  harmonizes  the  diversi- 
ties of  the  universe. 

5. — What  was  true  of  Christ,  with  the  limitations 
which  naturally  suggest  themselves  in  connection 
with  his  special  position  and  character,  is  true  of  his 
people.  As  was  said  of  Christ,  so  it  can  be  said  of 
the  true  follower  of  Christ,  "  virtue  goes  out  of 
him."  On  the  supposition  that  the  true  Life  power 
is  in  him,  which  is  of  course  involved  in  the  fact  of 
his  being  a  true  Christian,  it  will  always  be  found, 
that  he  is  a  channel,  a  method  of  communication,  a 
mediatorial  gateway ;  and  that  he  is  so,  not  by  a 
temporary  and  arbitrary  arrangement,  but  by  the 
constitution  of  things  and  the  divine  necessities  of 
the  case.  So  that  men  cannot  look  upon  him  with- 
out being  blessed  with  the  divine  light  which  beams 


258  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

from  his  countenance  ;  and  they  cannot  talk  with 
him  without  feeling  almost  sensibly  the  divinely 
inspirational  weight  of  his  words. 

6. — There  is  one  attribute  of  the  mediatorial 
principle,  which  is  worthy  of  special  notice  ;  it  is  the 
attribute  or  law  of  increase.  The  intuitional  inspi- 
rations of  Christ  have  announced  this  law  in  re- 
markable words ;  not  the  less  striking  perhaps, 
because  they  are  negative  as  well  as  affirmative  in 
the  form  :  "  He  that  hath,  to  him  shall  be  given  ; 
and  from  him  that  hath  not,  shall  be  taken  even 
that  which  he  hath."  He  who  is  not  a  true  subject 
of  mediatorial  life,  in  not  accepting  the  great  law  of 
instrumentality  in  goodness,  cannot  grow ;  but  is 
deprived  of  the  gifts,  whatever  they  may  be,  which 
he  already  has.  And  the  law  of  increase  corre- 
sponds to  this  result  ;  the  increase  in  the  power  or 
capacity  of  the  principle  itself  being  greater  or  less, 
in  proportion  to  the  beneficial  results  attending  its 
own  practical  exercise.  He  who  does  good,  and 
every  time  that  he  exercises  goodness,  and  in  the 
degree  that  he  does  good,  grows  in  the  power  of 
doing  good,  so  that  the  benevolent  activity  of  the 
soul  is  practically  and  resultingly  the  growth  of  the 
soul. 

7. — How  delightful  is  the  thought,  that  it  is  our 
privilege   not  only  to  be  mediators,  but  to  grow  as 


MEDIA  TORTALISM.  259 

mediators ;  not  only  to  be  channels  of  good  to  others, 
but  by  a  fixed  and  ultimate  law  to  become  wider  and 
deeper  as  channels ;  not  merely  to  be  the  little  rivu- 
lets that  flow  on  with  small  results,  but  to  swell  into 
mighty  rivers  that  nourish  cities  and  nations,  and 
float  the  commerce  of  the  world. 

8. — Such  is  the  brief  outline  of  the  doctrine  of 
mediatorship  when,  without  any  disrespect  to  the 
value  of  the  dogmatical  expression,  it  is  subjected, 
in  accordance  with  the  progressive  demands  of  the 
age,  to  the  inquiries  of  analytic  thought  and  reason. 
And  we  do  not  see  that  anything  is  lost  by  it.  The 
mediatorial  principle  is  a  permanent  and  universal 
one  ;  existing  everywhere  and  under  all  possible 
varieties  of  circumstance. 

9. — Humanity,  in  the  consciousness  of  its  great 
needs,  calls  for  the  announcement  of  spiritual  truths, 
which  shall  be  practically  carried  out.  Mediatorial- 
ism  is  one  of  them.  What  the  world  wants  to-day, 
and  what,  with  its  "  Macedonian  cry,"  it  calls  for 
to-day,  is  mediators  ;  men  who  are  trained  in  the 
self-denying  school  of  the  great  mediatorial  captain 
and  leader  ;  men  who,  by  the  internal  law  of  their 
being,  are  mediatorially  alive.  What  but  this  great 
resource,  can  solve  among  other  things  the  terrible 
social  problems,  which  press  upon  our  suffering  race? 
The  heart   trembles  when,  joiner  below  the   surface 


26o  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

of  things,  it  everywhere  beholds  the  social  and  moral 
volcano  on  which  our  present  selfish  society  stands. 
The  millions  in  our  cities  who  are  suffering  in  pov- 
erty and  wrong  and  crime,  are  restlessly  demanding 
the  day  of  their  redemption.  There  is  no  peace, 
but  in  justice.  No  justice  but  in  the  law  of  the 
Cross,  which  is  practically  useless,  unless  it  is  medi- 
atorially  complemented  and  carried  out.  Mediato- 
rialism  is  Christ  in  action.  The  contest  may  be  long 
and  severe,  but  the  benevolent  principle  of  mediator- 
ship,  which,  in  receiving  good  only  to  communicate 
it,  hears  all  groans  and  wipes  all  tears,  will  gently 
draw  out  the  deep  and  smouldering  fires  which  lie 
around  and  beneath  us,  and  prevent  the  threatening 
convulsions. 

io. — One  of  the  results  of  the  great  principle  of 
mediatorship  is,  that  it  associates  us  with  angels. 
The  mediatorial  principle,  in  being  a  principle  and 
not  merely  an  event  or  incident,  is  not  only  eternal 
but  universal.  It  is  the  law  of  men  ;  it  is  also  the 
angelic  law  ;  and  is  not  more  the  true  life  of  the 
earth  than  it  is  of  the  heavens.  Angels,  and  all  be- 
ings in  the  heavenly  spheres,  are  the  embodiments  of 
mediatorial  activity.  The  scriptures  affirm  it ;  and 
if  they  did  not,  it  could  not  be  otherwise.  It  is  of 
these  high  and  holy  beings  it  is  said,  that  they  are 
"  all  ministering  spirits,  sent   forth  to    minister  for 


MEDIA  TOJRIALISM.  26 1 

them,  who  shall  be  heirs  of  salvation."  So  that  it 
can  be  said  in  a  true  interior  sense  that,  in  becom- 
ing mediatorial,  and  in  thus  falling  into  the  line  of 
harmony  with  all  good  and  useful  activities  whether 
above  or  below  us,  "ye  are  come  unto  Mount  Sion 
and  unto  the  city  of  the  living  God,  and  to  an  innu- 
merable company  of  angels." 


CHAPTER    XXX. 

Explanation  of  Terms  regarding  the  Essential  Life, 

TRUE  love  which  is  known  in  the  writings  of  the 
devout  Mystics  and  Quietists  under  the  denomina- 
tion of  Pure  Love,  is  the  love  of  existence.  In 
other  words  it  is  of  the  nature  of  true  or  pure  love, 
and  is  that  which  constitutes  what  it  is,  to  attach 
itself,  not  to  the  form  of  things,  but  to  the  essences 
of  things.  And  what  is  perhaps  equally  important 
in  the  discrimination  of  its  nature,  it  loves  indepen- 
dently of  forms  or  modes  of  existence ;  it  seeks  truly 
and  earnestly  the  happiness  of  whatever  is  capable 
of  happiness,  whatever  may  be  its  character  or  the 
form  of  its  existence. 

In  the  separation  of  that  primary  existence, 
which  we  denominate  being  from  all  its  incidents 
and  diversities  of  form  and  character,  such  being,  in 
its  essential  nature,  necessarily  presents  itself  as  a 
unit.  And  hence  it  is  in  loving  the  unit  or  oneness 
of  being,  we  virtually  and  truly  love  all  being. 


TERMS  REGARDING  ESSENTIAL  LIFE.        263 

And  accordingly  it  can  be  said,  when  man  is 
born  not  transitionally,  or  in  part,  but  in  the  true 
birth,  he  is  then  a  "  partaker  of  the  Divine  Nature/' 
He  is  in  God,  and  God  in  him.  Man  must  necessa- 
rily retain  his  individuality  for  the  reason  that  the 
finite  cannot  be  the  Infinite.  It  is  individualism,  or 
finite  personality  living,  breathing  and  acting  in 
God.  Let  us  illustrate  the  subject  a  little  further  in 
connection  with  a  common  remark,  namely,  that 
everything  has  its  sphere  of  life.  Trees  and  plants 
have  their  spheres.  The  lower  animals  have  their 
sphere.  And  this  remark  is  true  of  men,  as  it  is  of 
everything  else.  Man  has  his  sphere.  The  will  of 
man's  perceptions  and  motives  is  necessarily  bound- 
ed, in  the  first  instance,  by  the  limited  will  of  his 
position.  In  his  individual  capacity  he  acts  in  his 
individual  sphere.  But  the  truth  and  perfection  of 
his  action  is  realized,  when  his  action  as  an  individ- 
ual and  in.  his  own  sphere  harmonizes  with  the  truth, 
the  motives  and  the  holiness  of  the  Universal  Sphere, 
of  which  God  is  the  centre.  It  is  then  that  his 
sight  becomes  clear ;  he  sees  with  God's  eye,  he 
hears  with  God's  ear. 

These  views  help  us  to  explain  certain  expres- 
sions, which  are  found  from  time  to  time  in  writers. 
In  the  experience,  for  instance,  of  the  state  of  Pure 
Love,  the  individual,  who  is  the  subject  of  this  high 


264  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

and  transforming  experience,  may  be  said,  in  a  cer- 
tain sense,  to  be  merged  and  mingled  in  that  which 
is  out  of  himself,  and  even  to  become  "  extinct''  and 
"  lost  "  in  God.  Expressions  of  this  kind,  and  among 
others  the  term  "  self-annihilation,"  are  found  not  un- 
frequently  in  the  writings  of  some  devout  Catholics  ; 
nor  are  they  wholly  unknown  in  Protestant  religious 
literature.  But  in  using  such  terms,  which  are 
spiritually  and  profoundly  significant,  the  literal 
meaning  must  be  somewhat  modified.  It  is  not 
meant  to  be  said  of  the  person  to  whom  such  terms 
are  applied,  that  he  is  extinct  or  lost,  in  the  absolute 
sense  of  the  expressions  and  in  the  matter  of  dis- 
tinct personality.  He  is  not  lost,  is  not  "  annihi- 
lated," in  the  fact  of  that  actual  self-consciousness, 
which  constitutes  him  a  distinct  and  responsible  exis- 
tence; but  only  in  separateness  of  interests  and 
hopes ;  in  those  reflex  acts  which  turn  the  mind 
too  much  upon  our  own  joys  and  purposes ;  in 
everything  which  makes  us  forgetful  of  the  wants 
and  happiness  of  others,  by  incidentally  seeking  our- 
selves. Such  an  one,  retaining  his  personality  but 
expanding  it  without  limitation,  knows  enough  of 
himself  as  an  individual  to  know  that  he  is  not  his 
own,  that  his  soul  has  become  a  living  fountain  which 
takes  its  rise  from  God,  and  flows  out  to  all  the 
boundless  variety  of  existences.     Names,  sect,  rank, 


TERMS  REGARDING  ESSENTIAL  LIFE.        265 

party,  color,  become  indistinct,  and  are  comparatively 
lost  in  the  one  idea  of  Universal  Brotherhood. 

10. — The  man  "  born  again  "  and  fully  complet- 
ed in  the  second  birth,  is  not  only  humanitarian  in 
the  highest  sense  of  that  term,  but  is  the  holy  or 
divine  man.  The  man  humanitarian  is  something 
more  than  the  man  individual.  And  the  man  di- 
vine is  something  more  than  the  man  humanitarian. 
The  difference  at  each  gradation  not  only  exists  as 
a  difference,  but  it  is  great.  Such  a  man,  in  the 
wide  and  resistless  movement  of  the  divine  Spirit 
within  him,  not  only  transcends  the  restricted 
bounds  of  individualism,  not  only  passes  beyond  the 
limits  of  kindred  and  country,  but  beyond  those  of 
humanity  itself;  and  embraces  not  only  the  brother- 
hood of  man  but  all  existences,  both  those  above 
him  and  those  below  him.  Nothing  but  the  bound- 
lessness of  existence,  which  is  ever  developing  itself, 
nothing  but  the  boundlessness  of  benevolence,  which 
is  ever  pouring  happiness  into  existences,  nothing 
but  the  Infinite  of  creation  and  the  Infinite  of  love, 
nothing  but  God  himself  in  the  widest  and  noblest 
sense  of  that  glorious  term,  can  meet  and  satisfy  his 
measureless  sympathies. 

Holy  Love,  in  being  a  perpetual  life,  is  also  a 
perpetual  development  ; — it  never  ceases  its  action. 
To  cease  to  act,  would  be  to  cease  to  live.  It  is 
12 


266  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

not   to  be  supposed,  therefore,  that   God  will  love, 
for  some  definite  length  of  time,  which  shall  be  the 
completion   of  some   marked  period  or  epoch  ; — for 
instance,  till  the  supposed  destruction  of  the  world 
by    fire,   or  till  the   hypothetical    day    of  the  final 
Judgment, — and  then  having  separated  the  wicked 
from   the    righteous  will   cease  to  love  them.     He 
loves  them,  and   from  the   nature   of  the   case,  he 
must  continue  to  love  them.     There  is  not  a  sinner 
in  Hades  or  Hell,   (which  however  is   only  another 
name  for  the  darkness  and  discordancy  of  the  lowest 
sphere  of  spiritual  existences,)  who  is  not  sought 
after,  and  watched  over.     This  is  the  great  and  glo- 
rious truth,  which  makes   all  heaven  ring  with  joy, 
that  God  is  God   forever,  and  that   He  is  Love  for- 
ever ;  although'  it  may  not  follow,  and   it  does  not 
necessarily  follow,  that  this  love,  unceasing  though 
it  be,  will  be  accepted  and  be  made  available  in  the 
case  of  all  those  towards  whom  it  is  directed.     That 
is  one  of  the  things  which  is  to  be  left ;  because  it 
is  one  of  the  things  which  takes  hold  of  the  Eternal 
and  the  Infinite.     If  Love  is  absolute  and  unchange- 
able, freedom  also,  as  an  attribute  of  moral  beings, 
is  absolute  and  unchangeable.     God  himself,  who  in 
being  the  absolute  truth,  can   never  fail  to  respect 
the  absolute  truth,  and  will  never   coerce   a  sinner 
into  heaven  ;  for  that  would  only  be  placing  him  in 


TERMS  REGARDING  ESSENTIAL  LIFE.         26y 

a  deeper  Hell.  This  would  be  a  violation  of  fixed 
and  unchangeable  truths  and  relations.  It  would 
be  an  impossibility. 

But  in  some  other  place,  this  amazing  subject 
should  be  explained  more  fully; — with  appropriate 
facts,  arguments,  and  illustrations.  Moral  facts  and 
relations  are  just  as  fixed  and  unchangeable  as 
mathematical  facts  and  relations.  What  we  wish  to 
say  now  is,  that  Love  which  is  Life,  under  no  con- 
tingencies whatever  will  ever  cease  to  act.  And 
although  there  is  a  great  gulf  between  heaven  and 
hell,  it  is  true  that  "  Christ,  who  preached  to  the 
spirits  in  prison,"  has  mighty  moral  power  by  means 
of  moral  suggestions,  and  that  place  may  be  chang- 
ed by  change  of  character.  It  is  thus  that  Truth 
and  goodness  are  reconciled  ;  but  curiosity  stands 
rebuked.  It  is  a  mark  of  a  godlike  finite  mind  to 
leave  much  to  the  Infinite  mind  without  inquiry. 


CHAPTER  XXXI. 

Evidences  of  the  Existence  of  the  Essential  Life. 

I. — How  shall  it  be  known  by  others,  or  how  shall 
we  determine  for  ourselves,  whether  this  element  of 
a  true  and  everlasting  life  is  in  us  or  not? — an  in- 
quiry so  important,  that  it  has  called  forth  at  various 
times  such  thoughtful  works  as  that  of  Shepard  of 
Cambridge  on  the  Parable  of  the  Virgins,  Scougal's 
Life  of  God  in  the  Soul  of  man,  and  President  Ed- 
wards' Treatise  on  the  Religious  Affections.  The 
great  Teacher,  who  had  the  life  in  Himself,  and  who 
is  the  source  of  life  to  others,  gives  the  answer  to 
the  question  before  us,  in  those  simple  but  signifi- 
cant words:  "  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them." 

2. — The  mind  of  Christ,  speaking  after  the  man- 
ner of  men,  was  not  only  constituted  with  a  highly 
poetic  tendency,  as  some  modern  critics  have  justly 
acknowledged,  but  was  eminently  thoughtful,  and 
was  by  no  means  destitute  of  a  philosophical  ele- 
ment. And  He  gives  one  of  the  best  evidences  of 
this  trait  of  character,  and  that  he  knew  especially 


EVIDENCES  OF  ESSENTIAL  LIFE. 


269 


how  to  deal  with  mental  questions,  in  generally 
communicating  his  great  doctrines,  not  in  abstract 
statements,  but  in  familiar  illustrations,  adapted  to 
the  mental  development  of  those  around  him.  Ac- 
quainted as  he  was  with  the  most  interior  relation 
of  things,  he  does  not  say  to  the  multitude  whom 
he  addresses,  "  Every  effect  has  its  cause,"  or  some- 
thing of  that  kind  ;  but  says,  in  kindly  sympathy 
with  the  feeble  intellcctualism  of  his  uneducated 
hearers,  "  Men  do  not  gather  grapes  from  thorns, 
nor  fijjs  from  thistles."  A  beautiful  illustration,  set 
ting  clearly  forth  the  great  philosophical  principle, 
that  the  character  of  the  effect,  whether  good  or 
evil,  is  necessarily,  and  by  a  law  of  being,  a  revela- 
tion of  the  nature  of  its  cause.  In  knowing  the  re- 
sults, we  know  the  causative  principle ;  in  knowing 
the  fruits,  we  know  the  vital  force  from  which  they 
spring.  We  feel  at  liberty  therefore  to  affirm,  that 
the  good  man,  being  what  he  is,  does  not  do  good 
from  self-interested  calculations;  but  on  the  princi- 
ple involved  in  Christ's  illustration  of  the  tree  and 
its  fruits,  does  good  because  he  cannot  do  other- 
wise ;  it  being  the  law  of  a  truly  good  and  holy  na- 
ture to  do  good.  Such  a  man  is  in  the  true  life  : 
and  may  be  said  in  a  high  and  sacred  sense  to  be  a 
living  man.  "  He  that  hath  the  Son,"  says  the 
Apostle  John,  "  hath  life,  and  he  that  hath  not  the 


270  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

Son  of  God,  hath  not  life."  The  living  man  is  like 
a  star,  which  shines  because  it  is  a  star ;  is  like  a 
fountain,  which  flows  because  it  is  a  fountain ;  is  like 
a  flower,  which  gives  out  its  fragrance  because  it  is 
a  flower ;  is  like  a  tree,  which  bears  fruit  because  it 
is  a  tree.  In  other  words  a  living  man  in  the  high- 
er sense  of  the  term,  is,  by  the  necessities  of  his  na- 
ture a  man  of  out-goings,  of  activities,  of  fruits  or 
works  ;  having  the  practical  working  and  manifesta- 
tion of  his  earthly  career  hung  round  with  the  flow- 
ers and  the  fruits  of  beneficence. 

3. — Such  is  the  answer  of  Christ  to  the  question 
before  us ;  and  it  is  an  answer  which  will  bear  the 
most  thoughtful  consideration.  But  it  will  perhaps 
be  suggested  here,  that  the  evidence  which  is  thus 
furnished,  it  being  objective  or  outward,  is  evidence 
to  others  only,  and  not  to  the  man  himself.  But  it 
is  to  be  remembered  that,  while  the  fruits  are  out- 
ward, the  causative  principle  is  inward.  And  in  the 
correlation  of  things,  felt  and  accepted  in  the  uni- 
versal intuitions  of  men,  they  go  together.  The 
outward  fruits,  it  is  true,  are  matters  of  outward  ob- 
servation ;  but  the  outward  fruits  reveal  the  fact  of 
the  inward  principle,  which  stands  as  the  source  or 
the  motive  of  action,  and  then  adjusting  our  affir- 
mations, not  to  the  outward  results,  but  the  inward 
cause,  we  say  at  once  on  the  basis  of  mental  knowl- 


EVIDENCES  OF  ESSENTIAL  LIFE. 


271 


edge,  that  the  cause,  revealed  in  the  man's  own 
breast,  comes  within  the  sphere  of  consciousness. 
The  man  therefore  who  is  really  in  the  outward 
truth,  in  the  matter  of  good  fruits  or  good  doing, 
will  know  himself  also  to  be  in  the  inward  or  essen- 
tial truth,  because  his  consciousness  cannot  testify 
to  a  falsehood.  It  is  in  accordance  with  this  view, 
that  it  is  said  in  the  first  Epistle  of  John  of  the  be- 
liever in  Christ,  that  he  "  hath  the  witness  in  him- 
self." And  the  Apostle  Paul  also,  in  the  Epistle  to 
the  Romans  asserts,  that  "the  Spirit  itself,"  who 
always  harmonizes  with  the  truth,  "beareth  witness 
with  our  spirit ;  "  in  other  words,  concurrently  tes- 
tifies, in  such  ways  as  are  known  to  himself,  to  the 
affirmation  of  our  own  consciousness,  "  that  we  are 
the  children  of  God." 

Such  is  the  evidence  in  the  case.  The  principles 
involved  in  it  are  scriptural,  and  at  the  same  time 
are  in  accordance  with  human  reason.  They  bear 
at  least  the  seal  and  signature  of  the  great  Master. 
Practical  good  doing,  involving  as  it  does  the  "  in- 
ward witness,"  is  the  true  test  of  the  life  of  God  in 
the  soul. 

But  it  is  proper  to  add  at  this  point,  that  the  ac- 
tivity, resulting  in  good  doing  or  good  fruits,  is  not 
always  in  the  same  method  or  form,  but  is  suscepti- 
ble  of  many   diversities.     It   is   apparently  a    fixed 


272 


ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 


and  permanent  principle  in  the  constitution  of 
things,  that  every  thing  which  exists  finds  some- 
where its  correspondent  or  counterpart ;  and  accord- 
ingly that  which  is  good,  will  be  found  to  be  sup- 
plemented with  occasions  of  good  ;  and  that  which 
is  evil,  finds  itself  surrounded  with  occasions  of  evil, 
so  that  every  living  principle,  attracting  around  its 
own  vitalizing  centre  the  occasions  and  opportuni- 
ties of  its  exercise,  forms  as  it  were  a  habitation  for 
itself  to  dwell  in.  And  yet  it  is  true  that  the  habi- 
tation, the  surrounding  framework  and  dwelling- 
place  of  occasions,  is  not  always  specifically  the 
same;  but  in  the  multitude  of  its  facts  and  inci- 
dents, notwithstanding  its  fixed  relations  to  its  cen- 
tral attracting  element,  is  exceedingly  diversified. 
Nor  is  there  any  rule  which  can  definitely  ascertain 
and  specify  beforehand,  what  the  precise  nature  of 
that  diversity  will  be  ;  in  other  words,  in  what  par 
ticular  way  each  one  will  act  out  his  inward  life  in 
its  correspondent  good  or  evil ;  for  it  is  one  of  those 
things,  which,  in  taking  hold  of  the  immeasurable 
infinitude  of  facts  and  relations,  necessarily  lies  hid- 
den in  the  depths  of  infinite  wisdom. 

4. — While  therefore  it  is  necessary  for  each  one 
to  be  good  in  order  to  fulfill  his  highest  obligations, 
and  to  secure  the  highest  happiness,  it  is  not  possi- 
ble for  any  one  to  say  beforehand,  precisely  in  what 


EVIDENCES  OF  ESSENTIAL  LIFE.  273 

way  this  goodness  will  manifest  itself.  And  if 
we  cannot  beforehand  lay  down  the  law  for  our- 
selves in  this  matter,  so,  also,  we  cannot  always  ac- 
cept the  law  or  rule  of  action  from  the  opinion  or 
dictates  of  others,  who  may  be  supposed  to  be 
equally  ignorant.  But  having  the  life  of  goodness 
as  something  central  and  essential,  we  shall  not  di- 
rect its  outflowing  by  means  of  arbitrary  calcula- 
tions and  adjustments ;  shall  not  do  this  or  that, 
shall  not  go  in  this  or  that  direction  in  our  own 
wills;  but  shall  rather  find  ourselves  the  quiet  and 
almost  unconscious  subjects  of  its  divine  tendency, 
to  move,  and  move  only  in  God's  time,  in  God's 
way,  and  in  God's  degree.  And  the  result  is,  as 
God  directs  us  and  not  man,  and  with  all  the  knowl- 
edge which  God  alone  possesses,  that  there  are  very 
numerous  diversities ;  and  such  as  could  not  be 
safely  originated  or  directed  by  mere  human  wis- 
dom. Hence  it  is  that  one  good  man  will  be  a 
preacher  at  home  ;  another,  with  the  same  essential 
life  in  his  soul,  will  be  a  missionary  to  the  heathen. 
One,  taking  the  direction  of  outward  activity,  will 
cry  aloud  and  spare  not,  like  Luther  or  Whitfield  ; 
and  another,  by  an  interior  leading  equally  divine, 
will  worship  God,  after  the  manner  of  Penn  or 
George  Fox,  in  the  temple  of  inward  stillness.  And 
such  diversities,  all  springing  from  the  same  essen- 


T2- 


2jA  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

tial  unity,  will  be  all  and  equally  pleasing  to  God. 
In  all  probability,  there  was  much  speculation  in  the 
earlier  ages  about  that  solitary  and  mysterious  man, 
Thomas  a  Kempis ;  and  many  perhaps  thought  he 
was  an  unprofitable  Christian  ;  but  God,  neverthe- 
less, had  a  work  for  him  to  do,  and  was  working  in 
him  ;  and  at  last  the  fruitage  of  his  solitary  medita- 
tions appeared  in  that  well  known  and  eminently 
spiritual  work,  the  Imitation  of  Christ,  on  which  the 
hungry  souls  of  successive  generations  have  fed. 

7. — And  similar  diversities  of  result  will  appear 
in  things  which  are  regarded  as  secular;  but  which, 
in  a  true  state  of  society,  will  be  brought  more  fully 
and  distinctly  within  the  sphere  of  religion.  The 
mathematical  sciences,  and  those  sciences  which  in- 
volve more  or  less  a  mathematical  calculation  as  their 
basis,  are  often  placed  in  the  popular  estimation, 
outside  of  the  religious  sphere  ;  at  least  in  a  great 
degree.  And  it  is  oftentimes  plainly  hinted,  per- 
haps on  account  of  their  supposed  closer  connection 
with  the  head  than  the  heart,  that  the  mathematician 
and  the  philosopher  in  their  solitary  studies,  might 
be  more  profitably  employed  in  a  prayer  meeting. 
This  may  sometimes  be  the  case.  But  it  is  no  pre- 
sumption to  say,  as  a  general  principle,  that  the  re- 
ligious character  of  a  man's  work  does  not  so  much 
depend  upon  the  place  where  he  is,  as  upon  his  in- 


EVIDENCES  OE  ESSENTIAL  LIEE. 


275 


spiration ;  does  not  turn  so  much  upon  the  thing 
which  he  docs,  as  upon  the  question  whether  God 
calls  him  to  do  it,  and  whether  he  acts  from  a  true 
inward  life.  We  do  not  find  it  stated  of  Sir  Isaac 
Newton  that  he  appeared  much  in  public,  especially 
on  occasions  of  a  religious  nature ;  and  yet,  remem- 
bering that  God  acts  through  a  diversity  of  gifts  and 
methods,  we  can  not  easily  think  of  him  in  his  silent 
and  protracted  inquiries,  pursued  for  objects  which 
he  felt  to  be  connected  with  the  progress  of  the  hu- 
man race,  without  almost  consciously  feeling,  that  the 
Spirit  of  God  was  with  him,  and  was  the  true  inspira- 
tion of  his  profound  thoughts.  His  reply,  when 
asked  by  some  one  in  what  way  he  arrived  at  his  dis- 
coveries, was,  that  he  "  kept  the  subject  constantly 
before  him,  and  waited  till  the  first  dawning  opened, 
slowly,  by  little  and  little,  into  a  full  and  clear  light." 
This  is  a  statement  of  a  condition  of  mind,  at- 
tended as  it  was  in  the  case  of  Newton  with  great 
unselfishness,  simplicity,  and  lowliness  of  spirit,  which 
is  eminently  favorable  to  the  presence  and  opera- 
tions of  the  Spirit  of  God.  And  so  of  many  other 
cases.  A  great  Continent,  for  instance,  was  to  be 
discovered  ;  lands  and  forests  and  mighty  rivers,  long 
hidden  in  darkness  were  to  be  brought  to  light ;  and 
therefore  it  was  that  God,  who  had  inspired  great 
thoughts  and  aspirations  in  the  mind  of  Columbus 


276  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

thoughts  and  aspirations  correspondent  to  the 
work  to  be  done,  did  not  send  him  to  the  convent 
of  La  Rabida  to  affiliate  with  the  monks,  and  to 
become  a  member  there,  and  to  occupy  his  life  in 
the  prayers  and  services  of  a  monastery ;  but  clothed 
him  in  the  garb  of  a  sailor,  and  sending  him  with 
his  frail  vessels  from  the  port  of  Palos,  required  the 
fulfillment  of  his  mission  on  the  stormy  waves  of  the 
ocean — a  mission,  secular  as  it  was  in  its  outward 
aspects,  which  had  a  close  connection  with  God's 
providential  plans,  and  with  Christ's  reign  upon 
earth. 

8. — And  so  it  is  and  ought  to  be  everywhere. 
The  diversities  of  practical  religion  are  commen- 
surate with  the  diversities  of  practical  life.  Every- 
thing, which  is  fitting  to  be  done,  is  fitting  to  be  re- 
ligiously done  ;  and  furthermore,  it  cannot  by  any 
possibility  be  done  fittingly,  unless  it  is  done  reli- 
giously. Religion  is  necessary  in  the  pulpit  and  the 
prayer-meeting  ;  and  it  is  equally  necessary  in  direct- 
ing the  plough  of  the  husbandman,  and  in  working 
with  the  tool  of  the  mechanic.  The  hard  hand  of 
the  sailor  needs  it,  and  the  head  of  the  philosopher 
cannot  do  without  it.  And  there  is  a  sense  also,  in 
which  the  beautiful  saying  of  Milton  may  be  accept- 
ed as  a  religious  truth  : 

They  also  serve,  who  only  stand  and  wait. 


EVIDENCES  OF  ESSENTIAL  LIFE.  27 J 

9. — The  tree  is  known  by  its  fruits.  And  the 
evidence  of  a  truly  divine  life,  as  Christ  still  more 
specifically  teaches  us,  is  found  in  good  fruits.  They 
may  be  diversified  in  form  and  flavor  and  other  re- 
spects, but  they  must  be  good.  And  accordingly 
the  question  still  remains  to  be  answered  :  If  the 
existence  of  a  true  inward  life  is  known  not  from 
fruit  alone,  but  from  the  additional  and  essential  in- 
cident of  their  goodness,  in  what  way  or  by  what 
signs  shall  we  ascertain  the  fact  of  such  goodness  ? 
The  answer  to  this  vital  inquiry  is  to  be  found,  not 
in  the  doubtful  or  the  diluted  doctrines  of  human 
philosophy,  but  in  the  soul-searching  precepts  and 
principles  of  Christ.  Who  can  read  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount,  the  Gospel  and  Epistles  of  John,  the 
13th  chapter  of  the  First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians, 
and  other  like  portions  of  the  New  Testament,  es- 
pecially with  the  commentary  of  the  acts  and  doings 
of  Christ  himself,  without  a  full  conviction,  that  the 
fruitage  which  grew  in  the  heart  and  life  of  Christ,  is 
destined  to  be  born,  and  is  required  to  be  born,  in 
the  hearts  and  lives  of  his  followers  ?  We  answer 
therefore  in  general  terms,  and  without  going  fully 
into  this  particular  topic  at  present,  that  a  life  of 
good  fruits,  ascertained  and  known  to  be  such,  is, 
and  must  be  a  true  Christ  life.  And  some  of  the 
marks  or  characteristics  of  the    life  of  Christ  in   the 


278  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

soul,  if  we  rightly  understand  the   Scriptures  which 
have  been  referred  to,  are,  first,  it  is  necessarily  an- 
tagonistical  to  evil ;  second,  it  ultimately  and  always 
conquers  in  its  contest  with  evil ;  third,  it  carries  on 
its  victorious  contest  not  with  "  carnal  weapons,"  but 
on  entirely  new   principles.      It  conquers  jealousy, 
not  by  becoming  jealous  itself,  but  by  being  without 
jealousy.     It  conquers  envy,  not  by  being  envious 
itself,  but  by    being    without    envy.      It    conquers 
pride  and  ambition,  not  by  seeking  the  high  places 
of  earthly  power,  but  by  taking  a  low  place,  and  by 
becoming   the  servant  of  all.     It  conquers   hatred, 
not  by  hating  and  smiting  in  return,  but  by  pity  and 
love.     It  conquers  reviling  and   cursing,  not  by  ut- 
terances, which  are  like  them  in  bitterness,  but  by 
patience,    and     by  kind  words  and   blessings.      It 
bleeds   and  dies  upon  the    cross,   but  it   bursts  the 
bars  of  the  tomb,  and  ascends  to   heaven.     Its  ar- 
mory is  found  in  the    essentiality  and  the   mighty 
energy  of  its  own  life  of  Love ;  and  it  is  entitled  to 
its  place  of  victor,  not  only  by  the  skill  and  power 
of  Love   as   the  true   and  mighty   "  sword    of    the 
Spirit,"  but  by  the  unchangeable  truth  and  the  celes- 
tial ascendancy  of  its  position. 

Standing  in  the  pure  and  high  places,  and  in  the 
power  of  God  himself,  it  looks  down  with  calmness 
upon    the   various   forms   of    personal   hostility,  to 


EVIDENCES  OF  ESSENTIAL  LIFE.  2yg 

which  it  is  oftentimes  subject.  It  is  true  that  under 
such  circumstances  of  ingratitude,  opposition,  and 
hostility,  love  is  very  apt  to  take  the  form  of  pity  ; 
but  love,  in  being  pity  adopts  a  modification  of  its 
action,  without  ceasing  to  be  love. 


CHAPTER    XXXII. 

The  Essential  Life  Reaches  to  all  Existences. 

The  Essential  Life,  though  limited  in  its  sphere 
of  action,  is  the  same  in  man  as  it  is  in  God.  It  may- 
bear  different  names  ;  it  may  be  called  Life,  or  Es- 
sential Life,  or  Eternal  Life,  or  God's  Life,  or  the 
Life  of  God  in  the  soul  of  man,  or  Love,  or  Pure  Love, 
or  Holy  Love,  or  Perfect  Love,  or  Holiness,  or  the 
Holy  Spirit,  or  the  Holy  Ghost,  or  the  Christ 
Spirit,  or  the  Inward  Christ,  or  Christ  in  the 
Soul,  whatever  may  be  the  designation  it  bears,  it  is 
always  the  same  in  the  essentiality  of  its  nature  ; 
the  same  in  the  beginning,  the  same  now,  and  for- 
ever. It  follows  from  this,  that  the  soul,  which  is 
born  into  this  true  and  essential  life,  a  life  which  sees 
with  the  spirit,  and  which  hears  and  understands  with 
the  heart,  will  tenderly  recognize  the  presence  and 
activity  of  this  divinity  of  life,  and  will  love  it,  in 
all  things  that  exist.  Hence  it  is,  that  Christ  in  the 
Soul,  which  is  one  of  the  beautiful  names  it  bears, 
loves   inanimate    nature,    loves   trees   and    flowers. 


ESSENTIAL  LIFE  REACHES  ALL  EXISTENCES.  28 1 

"  Behold  the  lilies  of  the  field  ;  they  toil  not,  neither 
do  they  spin ;  and  yet  I  say  unto  you,  that  Solomon 
in  all  his  glory  was  not  arrayed  like  one  of  these." 
Christ  in  the  soul  saw  that  glory.  The  outward  eye, 
resting  merely  upon  outward  manifestations,  saw  only 
the  outward  forms  ;  saw  the  color  and  the  flowing 
outline  ;  but  Christ  in  the  soul,  which  instinctively 
recognizes  its  own  nature  under  all  diversities,  saw 
the  Christ  principle  at  work  in  the  flower  ;  the  eter- 
nal goodness  and  wisdom  shining  in  the  interior  of 
the  flower ;  and  its  glory  was  greater  than  the  glory 
of  Solomon.  God,  who  takes  care  of  trees  and 
flowers,  takes  care  also  and  in  a  special  sense  of 
animals  ;  and  a  recognition  of  the  rights  of  the 
lower  animals  and  a  true  sympathy  and  love  for 
them,  is  a  part  of  the  inward  experience  of  those 
who  have  God  in  the  soul.  If  any  are  disposed  to 
regard  such  experiences  as  of  little  value  in  them- 
selves, or  as  unauthorized  by  the  Scriptures,  let 
them  turn  to  the  104th  Psalm,  that  grand  outburst 
of  God's  love  for  animals  ;  and  read  there  the  feel- 
ings of  the  great  throbbing  Heart  of  the  Universe, 
who  planted  the  cedars  of  Lebanon  for  the  nest  of 
birds,  the  fir-tree  for  the  house  of  the  stork,  and 
who  spread  the  great  ocean,  not  merely  for  naviga- 
tors' ships  and  the  anchors  and  cables  of  commerce, 
but    for  the    play-ground  of  the    leviathan,  and  for 


282  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

creeping  things  innumerable  both  small  and  great. 
To  the  heart  that  inwardly  understands  and  digests 
this  wonderful  poem,  this  great  hymn  of  love,  every 
sphere  of  life  is,  and  must  be  sacred. 

There  was  a  remarkable  man  who  lived  in  Italy 
in  the  twelfth  century ;  a  man  so  gifted  in  intellect 
and  so  devout  in  heart,  and  so  abundant  in  labors, 
that  he  has  left  his  impress  on  succeeding  ages.  It 
is  related  of  this  man,  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  that 
to  him  all  nature  was  full  of  God ;  and  that  his  re- 
ligious consciousness,  grounded  in  and  quickened  by 
the  inward  realizations  of  celestial  love,  was  so  ex- 
panded that  it  embraced  every  thing,  animate  and 
inanimate,  men  and  animals.  He  believed,  as  all 
those  who  are  in  the  same  degree  of  celestial  love 
are  always  likely  to  believe,  that  all  the  departments 
of  nature  were  designed  to  be  connected  by  a  com- 
munity of  life  ;  that  the  broken  bonds  which  once 
united  them  are  waiting  for  a  restoration  ;  that 
man,  with  faith  enough  and  love  enough,  shall  once 
more  control  the  winds  and  waves;  and  that  the 
lower  animals,  like  the  dove  of  Noah,  and  the  ravens 
of  Elijah,  and  the  lions  of  the  den  of  the  Chaldean 
prophet,  shall  sympathize  with  his  sorrows,  and  ad- 
minister to  his  necessities.  Our  doctrine  is  sup- 
ported abundantly  by  the  Scriptures,  as  we  believe, 
that  there  is  something  beyond  the  brotherhood  of 


ESSENTIAL  LIFE  REACHES  ALL  EXISTENCES.  283 

•  humanity,  namely,  the  brotherhood  of  life  ;  some- 
thing beyond  the  love  of  humanity,  the  wider  and 
deeper  love  of  everything  that  exists.  And  we  ap- 
peal in  support  of  it,  to  the  personal  history  and  the 
recorded  convictions  of  many  devout  men  in  all 
ages.  And  we  may  go  further  and  say,  that  the  in- 
stincts of  the  human  race,  and  the  sympathies  and 
aspirations  of  all  great  minds,  especially  those  that 
kindle  with  the  divine  elements  of  poetic  life,  all 
point  in  the  same  direction.  The  poems  of  the 
early  Greeks  and  Romans  are  full  of  this  tendency. 
The  poems  of  Cowper  and  Burns,  of  Wordsworth 
and  Shakespeare,  furnish  us  examples  and  proofs. 
The  poem  of  Burns  on  the  Wounded  Hare  was  not 
a  sentimental  or  hypocritical  expression  of  grief; 
but  had  its  birth  in  the  heart,  and  was  as  deeply 
true  to  nature  in  one  direction,  as  the  sublime 
stanzas  to  Mary  in  Heaven  are  in  another.  Men 
and  animals,  sundered  and  rendered  antagonistical, 
are  nevertheless  one  family.  And  when  the  Life  of 
God  in  the  soul  becomes  on  a  wide  scale,  the  inher- 
itance of  a  regenerated  humanity,  then  all  the  lower 
forms  of  created  nature,  recognizing  at  once  the  re- 
lation of  superiority  and  inferiority,  will  take  their 
position  in  subordination  ;  and  as  there  will  be  every- 
where a  correlation  and  reciprocity,  not  only  of 
forces  but  of  interests,  the  facts  of  subordination  on 


284 


ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 


the  one  hand  and  of  supremacy  on  the  other  will 
constitute  the  elements  of  permanent  and  universal 
harmony.  Then  the  lion  and  the  lamb  will  lie  down 
together;  conflicts  will  cease,  and  the  brotherhood 
of  humanity  will  be  supplemented  and  co-ordinated 
with  the  brotherhood  of  existence. 

The  man  who  does  not  recognize  the  handiwork 
of  God  in  the  lower  animals,  and  does  not  sympa- 
thize with  God  in  his  regard  for  them,  does  not 
bear  in  his  bosom  the  highest  elements  of  thought, 
of  inspiration,  and  character.  Strike  from  the  hu- 
man mind  this  noble  tendency,  and  how  many  po- 
ems, and  paintings,  and  sculptures  are  lost.  Take 
from  the  beautifully  sympathetic  heart  of  Rosa  Bon- 
heur  her  love  of  animals,  and  her  immortal  pencil 
falls  to  the  ground.  We  cannot  spare  the  birds,  nor 
the  dogs,  nor  the  horses,  nor  the  fishes  that  swim  in 
the  sea.  Why  is  it  that  the  stranger,  ascending  the 
summit  of  the  Capitoline  Hill  in  Rome,  and  behold- 
ing the  wonderful  equestrian  statue  which  ancient 
art  has  erected  there,  finds  his  eye  and  his  admiring 
thought  directed  as  much  to  the  majestic  and  in- 
spiring attitude  of  the  horse,  as  to  that  of  the  impe- 
rial Caesar  who  bestrides  him  ?  I  saw  the  dust  of 
Wellington  carried  to  its  tomb,  and  in  the  long  pro- 
cession composed  of  the  eminent  men  of  England,  a 
place   was  reverently  left   for  the  horse  of  the  con- 


ESSENTIAL  LIFE  REACHES  ALL  EXISTENCES.  285 

queror ;  and  as  he  walked  alone,  amid  the  sound  of 
melancholy  trumpets,  he  divided  the  sympathy  of 
the  multitude  with  their  sorrows  for  his  fallen  mas- 
ter. The  horse  of  Alexander,  the  Macedonian  con- 
queror, has  his  place  in  history ;  and  the  historic  rec- 
ord, recognizing  the  ties  of  higher  and  lower  forms  of 
existence,  has  narrated  in  more  than  one  instance, 
the  affection  and  -  devotedness  of  the  faithful  dog  ; 
and  statuary  has  erected  monuments  to  his  mem- 
ory. 

Allow  me  to  close  with  an  incident,  which  made 
a  strong  impression  upon  me.  A  few  years  ago  I 
read  in  the  newspapers  that  a  little  girl  in  the  town 
of  Hingham,  in  Massachusetts,  had  tamed  the  fishes 
in  a  small  lake  near  her  father's  residence.  I  came 
to  the  little  girl's  home,  which  was  near  the  small 
lake  or  pond.  Knocking  at  the  door,  and  making 
such  apology  as  I  was  able  for  a  visit  so  early,  I  re- 
marked to  the  mother,  that  I  had  come  for  the  pur- 
pose of  seeing  the  fishes,  over  which  her  little 
daughter  was  said  to  have  obtained  a  remarkable 
control.  Readily  accepting  my  explanations,  she 
pointed  to  a  place  on  the  brink  of  the  water,  and 
said  that  her  daughter  would  soon  come  down  there. 
I  had  not  stood  there  long  before  a  little  girl,  appar- 
ently anxious  not  to  detain  me,  came  running  down. 
Seating  herself  on  a  rock  near  the  shore,  she  called 


286  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

aloud  to  the  fishes ;  calling  them  sometimes  by  the 
names  of  their  tribes,  and  sometimes  by  particular 
names  which  she  had  given  them.  There  was  one, 
a  large  one  in  which  she  was  particularly  interested, 
which  she  called  Cato.  But  Cato  either  did  not 
hear  her,  or  was  not  in  a  hurry  to  come.  She  made 
an  apology  for  the  fishes,  saying  that  it  was  earlier 
than  she  had  been  in  the  habit  of  calling  them,  and 
that  they  had  not  yet  left  their  places  of  slumber. 
But  repeating  still  more  loudly  the  invitation  of  her 
sweet  voice,  they  soon  began  to  make  their  appear- 
ance. The  smaller  ones  came  first,  and  then  the 
larger  ones  of  many  varieties ;  and  at  last  Cato,  who 
was  a  sort  of  king  and  counsellor  in  this  finny  con- 
gregation, came  among  them.  Delighted  with  this 
renewed  visit  of  their  virgin  queen,  although  they 
seemed  to  be  conscious  it  was  rather  early  in  the 
morning,  they  thrust  their  heads  above  the  water  ; 
and  she  fed  them  from  her  hand.  And  I  fed  them 
also. 

Observing  something  peculiar  at  a  little  distance 
in  the  water,  I  was  surprised  to  see  two  turtles 
making  their  way  towards  her.  Her  voice  of  affec- 
tion had  penetrated  beneath  their  dark  hard  shells. 
And  I  noticed  that  they  came  with  great  effort  and 
zeal ;  as  if  afraid  of  being  too  late  at  this  festival  of 
love.     One  of  them,  as   soon  as  they  reached   the 


ESSENTIAL  LIFE  REACHES  ALL  EXISTENCES. 


287 


shore,  scrambled  out  of  the  water,  and  climbed 
upon  the  rock  beside  her,  and  she  fed  them  both. 
I  shall  not  easily  forget  this  interesting  scene  ;  this 
little  episode  of  millenial  humanity. 

THE  MAIDEN  FISH-TAMER. 

Oh  maiden  of  the  woods  and  wave, 

With  footsteps  in  the  morning  dew ! 
From  oozy  bed  and  watery  cave, 

The  tenants  of  the  lake  who  drew, 
Thy  voice  of  love  the  mystery  knew, 
Which  makes  old  bards  and  prophets  true. 

They  tell  us  of  that  better  day, 

When  love  shall  rule  the  world  again  ; 

When  crime  and  fraud  shall  pass  away, 
And  beast  and  bird  shall  dwell  with  men  , 

When  seas  shall  marry  with  the  land, 

And  fishes  kiss  a  maiden's  hand. 

The  iron  age  has  done  its  best 

With  trump  and  sword  and  warriors  slain  ; 

But  could  not  tame  the  eagle's  nest, 
Nor  lead  the  lion  by  the  mane  ; 

With  all  its  strength  and  all  its  woe, 

There  was  an  art  it  did  not  know. 

'Twas  fitting,  that  a  maid  like  thee, 
In  childhood's  bright  and  happy  hour, 

Should  t-each  the  world  the  mystery, 
That  white-rob'd  innocence  has  power; 

That  love  the  victory  can  gain, 

Which  is  not  won  by  millions  slain. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

The  Power  of  the  Essential  or    True  Life. 

Our  principal  object  in  this  chapter  is  the  con- 
sideration of  the  Power  of  the  true  life,  not  in  its 
philosophy  but  in  its  practical  results  ;  not  in  its 
highest  and  primal  manifestations,  which  in  some 
degree  transcend  human  insight,  but  in  its  subor- 
dinate manifestations,  and  particularly  as  it  is  mani- 
fested in  men.  The  methods  in  which  it  manifests 
itself  are  very  various.  In  the  case  of  the  Christian 
orator,  for  instance,  it  will  sometimes,  under  the  in- 
spiration of  essential  life,  speak  in  terms  of  rich  and 
glowing  eloquence,  matching  and  more  than  match- 
ing the  standards  of  the  world's  great  masters ;  but 
not  less  frequently  its  words  are  few  and  simple ; 
perhaps  an  apothegm  or  a  parable,  but  coming  from 
the  well-spring  of  the  life,  they  touch  the  hearts  of 
the  people,  and  open  the  fountains  of  living  salva- 
tion. And  what  is  remarkable,  it  is  sometimes  the 
case,  that  the  absolute  silence  of  the  man  of  God 


POWER  OF  ESSENTIAL  OR   TRUE  LIFE.         28o 

will  have  more  effect  than  the  noisy  declamation  of 

the  man.  who  is  without  God.     Power  goes  out  of 

him  as  it  went   out  of  Jesus.     If  it   speaks  in   the 

mighty  words  of  Paul  and  Apollos,  it  speaks  also  in 

the  silence  of  a  loving  John,  when  he  leans  his  head 

on  a   brother's   bosom.     What   more   effective    and 

touching   eloquence   than   that   of  the  Son  of  Man, 

when,  in   the  midst  of  a  stormy  and  cruel  tribunal, 

he  "  uttered  not  a  word ;  "  and  the  Roman  governor, 

struck  with  this  sublime  disregard  of  the  precedents 

of  a  worldly  life,    "  marveled  greatly/'     And  there 

are  some  specific  modifications  of  the  great  variety 

of  its  forms,  which   are  worthy  of  notice.     One  of 

the  most  remarkable  things  pertaining  to  the  Power 

of  the  Life,  is,  that  it  manifests  itself  often,  not  by 

the,  antagonism  of  the  same  forces,  as  when  we  meet 

evil  with  evil  and   return   blow   for  blow,  as  when 

sword   clashes  with   sword  and   cannon   rebounds  to 

cannon  ;  but  conquers  the  violence  that  attacks  it,  by 

the  resistance  and  antagonism  of  what  is  found  in 

the  opposite.     The  stormy  cloud  is  melted  by  the 

sunbeam  ;  the  lion  is  tamed  and  led  captive  by  the 

lamb ;  and   the   little   child  plays,  with   its   life   and 

beauty   unharmed,  on  the   cockatrice's   den.     In  all 

this  there   is   a   deep  philosophy,  which   transcends 

the   conceptions  of  a  heart,  that  knows  no   higher 


2g0  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

school  than  that  of  a  self-hood  which  excludes  the 
living  God. 

And  now  we  will  say  further,  coming  more  with- 
in the  practical  sphere  of  the  subject,  that  the  Pow- 
er of  the  Life,  that  form  of  power  which  pierces  and 
breaks  the  stony  hearts  of  men,  and  is  blessed  of 
God  in  the  great  matter  of  renovating  and  purifying 
their  perverted  natures,  is  not  found  greatly,  if  at 
all,  in  mere  intellectualism.  Many  facts  are  a  con- 
firmation of  this.  There  are  preachers  who  have 
eminently  the  gifts  of  perception  and  reasoning,  but 
have  little  influence  with  the  masses.  Even  if  at 
certain  times  their  reasonings  harmonize  with  the 
truth  they  produce,  and  can  produce  but  little  ef- 
fect, so  long  as  the  soul  from  which  they  come,  is 
felt  by  the  hearers  to  contradict  in  experience,  what 
their  reasonings  affirm  and  try  to  prove  as  a  princi- 
ple. Again,  the  element  of  vitalizing  power  is  not 
found  in  every  form  of  mere  emotionality  ;  we  refer 
particularly  to  what  may  be  called  aesthetic  emo 
tionality.  There  are  preachers,  and  other  profess 
edly  religious  teachers,  who  add  to  intellectual  pow 
ers  a  cultivated  taste,  and  adorn  their  reasoning 
with  the  arts  of  rhetoric.  Their  sermons,  consid- 
ered as  the  exercises  of  intellect  or  the  imagination, 
enlist  the  curiosity  of  men  and  please  their  fancy, 
but    have    little    living   power.     There    was    a    Ger- 


POWER  OF  ESSENTIAL  OR   TRUE  LIFE.         2QI 

man  preacher  of  the  14th  century — we  refer  to  the 
justly  celebrated  John  Taulcr  of  Cologne,  who 
stood  unmatched  in  learning  and  in  intellectual  and 
aesthetic  eloquence,  but  he  had  little  power  and 
influence,  at  least  in  a  way  which  satisfied  his  "con- 
viction of  what  ought  to  be  the  result,  until  he  was 
led  into  the  way  of  truth  and  life,  by  a  poor,  uncul- 
tured man  of  the  people,  whom  as  one  of  the  weak 
and  despised  things  of  the  world,  God  had  chosen 
and  made  the  instrument  of  this  mighty  influence. 
The  few  unlearned  men,  who  went  forth  from  Jeru- 
salem in  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era,  were 
not  allowed  to  go  until  they  were  endued  with  pow- 
er from  on  high.  They  were  commanded  by  Christ, 
"  that  they  should  not  depart  from  Jerusalem,  but 
wait  for  the  promise  of  the  Father,"  which  was  un- 
derstood in  its  fulfillment  to  be  the  baptism  of  the 
Holy  Spirit.  And  then  it  was  added :  "  Ye  shall 
receive  power  after  that  the  Holy  Ghost  is  come 
upon  you."  Endowed  with  this  great  gift,  this 
small  band  of  early  laborers  and  martyrs,  without 
the  prestige  of  position  or  scholarship,  went  forth  to 
the  mighty  work  which  was  appointed  them  ;  and 
though  the  strife  was  long,  and  in  many  cases 
crowned  with  great  suffering  and  death,  they  were 
found  more  than  a  match  for  the  proud  philosophers, 
the  arts,  and   the   institutions   of  that   trying   time. 


2g2  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

That  power  is  the  same  now  that  it  was  then ;  that 
divine  power  is  now  as  it  always  has  been,  the  re- 
served force  and  inspiration  of  the  world's  progress 
and  salvation  ;  but  it  lies  hidden  in  the  life.  The 
life  is  God  in  the  soul;  and  the  power  of  -  God 
always  goes  with  it. 

There  comes  in  connection  with  these  remarks, 
the  remembrance  of  a  man,  whose  life  of  love  and 
self-sacrificing  labors  strengthens  and  illustrates 
them.  I  remember  him  well.  He  lived  and  labored 
in  the  early  part  of  this  century  in  the  State  of 
Maine — a  man  without  the  advantages  of  a  public 
education,  but  who  had  but  one  thought,  one  feel- 
ing, that  of  the  glory  of  God  and  the  salvation  of 
men — the  Oberlin  of  the  American  woods.  He 
wandered  through  the  forests  ;  he  crossed  lakes  and 
rivers  ;  he  went  from  house  to  house  among  the 
poor  and  ignorant,  in  summer's  heat  and  winter's 
snows  ;  he  preached  in  barns  and  school-houses,  and 
in  the  remote,  rude  dwellings  of  the  woods,  and 
wherever  he  could  find  people  who  were  ready  to 
hear  ;  fulfilling  more  than  half  a  century  of  labors, 
up  to  the  very  limit  of  human  faith  and  human  en- 
durance. Such  was  our  loved  and  venerated  Father 
Sewall.     God  was  with  him  in  power. 

I  was  once  connected  with  a  church  of  great  in- 
telligence and  not  wanting  in  piety;  some  of  whose 


FOJVER  OF  ESSENTIAL  O.R   TRUE  LIFE. 


293 


members  have  held  high  political  positions,  and 
others  have  been  distinguished  for  attainments  in 
science  ;  but  of  all  the  members  of  this  truly  leading 
and  useful  church,  the  one  who  was  thought  to  exert 
the  most  religious  influence,  and  is  to  this  day  per- 
haps exerting  the  most  influence,  through  the  account 
which  is  published  of  her  life,  was  a  poor  negro  wo- 
man, who  in  her  childhood  was  a  slave.  She  dwelt 
alone.  During  a  period  of  eighteen  years,  she  sup- 
ported herself  by  washing  and  ironing  for  the  stu- 
dents in  the  neighboring  college.  And  judged  by 
all  outward  measurements  and  incidents,  and  as  the 
world  commonly  judges,  nothing  could  have  been 
lower  in  prestige,  or  lower  in  position.  But  her 
heart  was  the  dwelling-place  of  Christ.  Her  great 
familiarity  with  the  Bible,  the  spirit  of  prayer  which 
seemed  always  to  be  present  with  her,  her  gentle  and 
wise  words  of  discreet  and  thoughtful  encourage- 
ment, her  peace  which  flowed  like  a  river,  her  sub- 
lime and  forgiving  charity  which  never  failed — these 
beautiful  and  great  results  of  a  living  principle  in 
the  soul,  made  her  known  and  felt  as  a  mighty  power 
of  God  for  many  years.  She  was  spoken  of  both  in 
the  Church  and  in  the  community  around,  under  the 
name  of  "  Happy  Phebe  ; "  and  the  interesting 
tract,  published  by  the  American  Tract  Society, 
giving   some    account  of  her  character  and    labors, 


294  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

still  preserves  her  precious  memory,  and  perpetuates 
the  power  of  her  holy  life. 

One  instance  more,  which  illustrates  in  a  peculiar 
manner  the  resources  of  God  in  raising  up  instru- 
ments for  his  purposes,  where  human  wisdom  would 
not  be  likely  to  look  for  them.  I  once  knew  a  poor 
woman.  In  early  life  we  were  near  neighbors. 
Time  passed  on ;  and  she  heard  of  the  slave,  his 
toils,  his  sufferings,  and  his  terrible  bondage,  con- 
tinued for  centuries.  It  moved  her  heart  to  the 
very  foundations  of  her  being ;  and  the  world  called 
her  insane.  Being  at  a  certain  time  in  the  city  of 
Boston,  where  through  the  aid  of  a  near  relative  she 
had  found  an  humble  abode,  and  touched  by  the  re- 
membrance of  early  days  as  well  as  by  Christian 
sympathy,  I  sought  the  place  of  her  residence.  It 
was  a  Sabbath  day,  and  to  my  astonishment  I  found 
the  street  opposite  to  her  house  filled  with  people, 
listening  respectfully  and  earnestly  ;  and  from  an 
upper  window,  this  poor  woman,  the  world's  outcast, 
uttering  terrible  truths,  with  the  burning  energy  of 
the  words  of  the  ancient  prophets.  I  listened  with 
the  multitude;  and  when  she  had  concluded,  I 
went  to  her  room,  and  seated  by  her  side  we  talked 
of  the  slave,  whose  sorrows  had  become  her  own 
soul's  sorrows  ;  and  we  talked  also  of  our  early  days, 


POWER  OF  ESSENTIAL  OR   TRUE  LIFE.         295 

and  of  the  joys  and  sorrows  of  our  little  neighbor- 
hood. 

And  in  the  conversation  I  had  painful  evidence 
that  her  mind  was  shaken  ;  and  that  there  was  to 
some  extent,  a  foundation  for  what  had  been  said  of 
her  insanity.  In  leaving  her  my  heart  was  strangely 
and  profoundly  affected.  I  said  to  myself,  how  won- 
derful are  the  mysteries  of  Providence.  To-day, 
with  temples,  rich  in  architectural  beauty,  and 
preachers  learned  in  theologies  and  worldly  science, 
their  lips  comparatively  sealed  on  this  great  subject 
of  slavery  ;  and  God,  as  if  to  put  worldly  wisdom  to 
shame,  has  chosen  a  poor  woman,  reduced  almost  to 
beggary,  without  the  advantages  of  education,  and 
with  the  intellect  injured  and  broken  by  sorrows,  to 
utter  His  eternal  truths,  and  to  shatter  the  founda- 
tions of  the  gates  of  hell. 

The  man  who  has  the  power  of  God  in  his  soul, 
will  not  feel  much  troubled  when  told  that  certain 
false  philosophies,  whether  found  in  Germany,  in 
France,  in  England,  or  in  any  other  countries,  will 
overthrow  the  religion  of  Christ.  The  world  and 
its  wisdom  may  leave  us  ;  and  we  can  easily  afford 
to  part  company  with  them  ;  but  we  cannot  under 
any  circumstances,  dispense  with  the  power  of  the 
Life.  Let  the  friends  of  the  divine  truth,  who  are 
dirdincr  on  their  armor  for  the  last  great  conflict,  re- 

t-2* 


2^5  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

member  that  everything  which  appeared  in  Christ  as 
the  "  Son  of  Man,"  and  was  possessed  and  mani- 
fested in  His  incarnation,  is  brought  within  the 
sphere  of  humanity,  and  has  become  humanity's 
eternal  and  mighty  possession.  Whatever  Christ  did 
as  the  "  Son  of  Man,"  any  other  son  of  man  can  do, 
of  whom  it  can  be  said,  as  the  Apostle  Paul  said  of 
himself,  "  I  live  ;  yet  not  I,  but  Christ  liveth  in  me." 
He  can  heal  the  sick,  can  cast  out  devils,  can  open 
prison  doors,  can  tread  on  serpents  and  not  be  hurt, 
and  most  and  mightiest  of  all,  can  become  the  in- 
strument of  imparting  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  of  heal- 
ing the  diseases  of  the  mind.  Therefore,  we  believe 
that  God  will  raise  up  instruments  when  emergencies 
arise,  and  that,  if  the  rich  reject  Him,  He  will  choose 
the  poor,  and  if  the  learned  reject  Him,  He  will  take 
the  ignorant,  and  if  the  strong  reject  Him,  He  will 
make  friends  of  the  weak;  and  pouring  into  the  ves- 
sels of  poverty,  ignorance  and  weakness,  the  mighty 
powers  which  are  lodged  in  the  bosom  of  essential 
and  Eternal  Life,  He  will  triumphantly  complete  the 
work  of  redemption.  And  Christ  on  the  throne, 
and  Christ  in  the  soul  of  man,  Christ  in  heaven  and 
Christ  on  earth,  shall  hold  the  sceptre  of  dominion 
and  shall  reign  forever  and  ever. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

Locality  of  God  and  the  Divine  Moment — Personal 
Experience. 

At  a  certain  time,  in  the  course  of  my  inward 
personal  history,  I  found  myself  in  a  state  of  inward 
desolation,  such  as  I  had  seldom  and  perhaps  never 
experienced  before.  God  seemed  to  be  hidden  from 
my  view.  Christ  as  a  distinct  object  of  conception 
was  withdrawn.  I  found  nothing  of  that  familiar 
and  delightful  access  to  the  great  Source  of  Life, 
whether  denominated  God  or  Christ,  to  which  I  had 
been  accustomed.  The  beautiful  ministry,  or  what 
seemed  to  be  such,  of  angelic  and  spiritual  presences 
had  departed.  And  in  addition  to  this,  there  seem- 
ed to  be  a  weakening  and  disruption  of  the  ties 
which  bound  me  to  many  of  my  earthly  friends. 
Both  inwardly  and  outwardly  my  condition  was  one 
of  vacuity  and  deprivation,  which  apparently  wanted 
nothing  to  its  completeness.  It  reminded  me  of 
what  I  had  once  known  in  the  deserts  of  Sinai, 
where,  standing  on  the  tops  of  the  highest  moun- 


2gg  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

tains,  I  beheld  around  me  nothing  but  the  rugged 
cliffs ;  no  tree,  no  flower,  no  running  brook,  no  sing- 
ing bird. 

Finding  myself  in  this  arid  and  painful  condition 
of  things,  which  perhaps  for  the  sake  of  convenience 
may  be  denominated,  in  the  language  of  the  old 
mystics,  the  "  spiritual  wilderness,"  I  remained  for  a 
time  in  a  sort  of  amazement :  unable  to  understand 
its  nature  or  its  meaning.  At  last  arousing  from 
the  inactivity  and  confusion  of  spirit  which  natu- 
rally attended  it,  I  ventured  in  my  supplications  to 
ask  the  Lord,  what  was  the  cause  of  these  unlooked- 
for  experiences,  and  what  the  instruction  which  He 
wished  me  to  derive  from  them ;  for  I  knew,  al- 
though He  was  hidden  in  great  and  unprecedented 
mystery,  He  must  be  somewhere,  where  He  could 
listen  to  the  sound  of  my  voice.  For  a  time  no  re- 
sponsive utterance  came ;  neither  to  the  outward 
ear  where  I  did  not  look  for  it ;  nor  to  the  interior 
of  the  soul,  where  I  had  often  heard  it,  in  sugges- 
tions and  inspirations  which  left  no  doubt  of  the  di- 
vinity of  their  origin. 

After  such  a  time  as  seemed  to  be  necessary  to 
impress  me  fully  with  the  fact  of  this  great  desola- 
tion, and  also  to  train  my  heart  to  the  unwavering 
acceptance  of  it,  as  a  condition  of  things  which  had 
its  significancy  and  its  results,  and  to  dwell  quietly 


LOCALITY  OF  GOD  AND  DIVINE  MOMENT, 


299 


like  a  child  at  home  amid  its  clouds  and  darkness,  I 
received  from  time  to  time,  and  through  those  inte- 
rior sources  which  the  Holy  Spirit  knows  how  to 
open  and  employ,  such  intimations  and  teachings  as 
became  afterwards  of  great  spiritual  value  to  myself, 
and  perhaps  also  to  others,  although  I  am  aware 
that  inward  experiences  are  very  various,  and  that 
it  is  best  to  let  God  do  with  us  just  what  He 
pleases. 

In  the  first  place,  it  was  vividly  recalled  to  mind, 
as  a  part  of  the  inward  teaching  of  those  trying  but 
instructive  days,  that,  in  consequence  of  the  finite 
nature  of  the  human  mind,  all  things  and  all  events 
are  and  must  be  made  known,  not  by  one  broad 
and  all-embracing  perceptivity,  but  in  successive 
moments  of  time.  God  knows  all  things  simultane- 
ously; but  it  requires  I  think  not  much  argument 
to  show,  inasmuch  as  the  statement  carries  with  it 
its  own  evidence,  that  the  finite  mind,  bounded  by 
the  limit  of  its  own  finiteness,  can  know  only  by  a 
gradual  uplifting  of  the  veil  of  the  future,  and  in 
these  successive  moments.  And  it  was  made  clear 
also,  in  the  course  of  these  iqward  teachings,  that 
this  view,  in  consequence  of  the  relations  existing 
among  them,  had  reference  to  place  as  well  as  to 
time  ;  and  that  neither  successions  in  place,  nor 
successions  in  events,  nor  changes  of  any  kind,  could 


300  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

take  place  and  be  made  the  subjects  of  knowledge 
in  any  other  way.  And  hence  came  an  additional 
teaching,  based  upon  these  general  views,  that  we 
are  to  find  the  true  locality  of  God,  not  in  any  im 
alined  distant  heavens  where  I  liad  been  in  the 
habit  of  looking  for  Him,  and  thus  localizing. Him 
by  my  own  will  or  choice,  but  that  we  must  rather 
recognize  Him,  as  already  present  by  the  very  ne- 
cessities of  his  nature,  in  everything  which  exists  or 
takes  place  within  the  sphere  of  our  knowledge ; 
and  that  knowledge  comes  to  us  under  the  suc- 
cessive revelations  of  successive  moments.  In  other 
words,  the  present  moment,  more  than  all  others 
and  above  all  others,  is  the  divine  moment ;  and 
that  the  state  of  things,  which  is  then  made  present 
to  us,  whether  it  be  in  the  form  of  places  or  objects, 
or  persons  or  events,  constitutes  to  us  the  only  true 
and  available  locality  of  the  Divine  Nature.  We 
must  meet  God  there,  or  meet  Him  nowhere.  It 
is  therefore  a  great  and  glorious  truth,  that  the 
principle  of  the  Universe,  which  we  sometimes  call 
the  Divine  Life  of  the  Universe,  is  HERE  and  NOW ; 
that  in  the  moment  which  now  is,  and  nowhere  else, 
the  great  Life  and  Spirit  of  all  things,  always  the 
same  and  yet  always  changing,  meets  us  face  to 
face,  in  every  man  that  we  meet;  in  every  flower; 
in  every  tree   and   plant  and   insect   and  animal  ;  in 


LOCALITY  OF  GOD  AND  DIVINE  MOMENT.     301 

every  joy  and  sorrow  ;  in  all  good  and  all  evil ;  in 
all  clouds  and  all  sunshine  ;  in  all  blessings  and  all 
curses;  in  all  angels  and  all  devils;  in  all  virtues 
and  all  crimes.  So  that  it  will  always  be  found,  if 
we  are  out  of  position  with  the  present  moment, 
either  in  the  posture  of  our  feelings  or  the  error  of 
our  acts,  we  lose  something  of  God,  by  losing  some- 
thing of  that  knowledge  which  the  present  moment 
brings. 

And  again,  there  was  this  additional  and  most 
important  teaching:  The  recognition  of  God  in  the 
divine  moment  is,  in  the  first  instance  and  necessa- 
rily, the  recognition  of  Him  as  an  objective  or  out- 
ward God.  But  this  outward  manifestation  of  God, 
or  better,  perhaps,  this  recognition  of  Him  as  hav- 
ing a  fixed  and  present  relation  to  the  thing  or 
event  of  the  moment,  calls  forth  the  God  subjective 
or  the  God  in  our  own  souls.  The  God  sincerely 
recognized  without,  and  the  God  actually  existing 
within, — using  expressions  which  are  adapted  to 
man's  imperfect  methods  of  thought, — may  be  re- 
garded as  always  correlative  and  correspondent  to 
each  other.  And  accordingly,  if  the  event  or  fact 
which  the  present  moment  reveals  to  us  is  one  of 
kindness,  it  calls  forth  in  our  own  souls  the  divine 
element  of  gratitude;  if  the  event  be  one  of  sorrow, 
it   calls   forth,  in  correspondence   with   the  outward 


3o2  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

occasion,  the  spiritual  graces  of  submission  and  pa- 
tience ;  if  the  thing  or  event  be  of  the  nature  of  a 
persecution,  it  is  corresponded  to  by  feelings  of  for- 
bearance and  forgiveness.  The  result  of  this  com- 
plex occasion,  characterized  by  the  objective  on  the 
one  side  and  by  the  subjective  on  the  other,  is,  that 
God  outward  is  revealed  through  outward  facts,  and 
that  God  in  the  soul  is  revealed  through  inward  feel 
ings. 

Meeting  together  under  a  providential  arrange- 
ment, which  has  respect  equally  to  both,  they  fur- 
nish reciprocally  the  conditions  and  incitements  of 
development  and  action.  So  that  the  instruc- 
tion revealed  during  the  period  of  this  singular  and 
trying  experience,  when  compared  and  adjusted  in 
all  its  parts,  seems  to  have  been  this — with  a 
heart  devoted  to  God  and  full  of  God,  no  longer 
seek  Him  in  the  heavens  above  or  the  earth  be- 
neath, or  in  the  things  under  the  earth,  nor  in  any 
locality  which  has  the  effect  to  restrict  his  name 
and  limit  his  existence,  but  recognize  Him  as  the 
great  fact  of  the  universe,  separate  from  no  place  or 
part,  but  revealed  in  all  places  and  in  all  things  and 
events,  moment  by  moment.  And  as  eternity  alone 
will  exhaust  this  momentary  revelation,  which  has 
sometimes  been  called  the  ETERNAL  Now,  thou 
shalt  thus  find  God  ever  present  and  ever  new ;  and 


LOCALITY  OF  GOD  AND  DIVINE  MOMENT.     303 

thy  soul  shall  adore  Him  and  feed  upon  Him  in  the 
things  and  events  which  each  new  moment  brings ; 
and  thou  shalt  never  be  absent  from  Him  and  He 
shall  never  be  absent  from  thee. 

Let  us  take  an  illustration :  It  happens  as  we 
are  walking  the  streets,  that  we  unexpectedly  meet 
with  a  man  who  approaches  us  with  words  and 
deeds  of  violence.  He  meets  us  in  the  present  mo- 
ment and  at  no  other.  It  is  a  necessity  that  God 
comes  with  him  ;  because  God,  by  the  necessities 
of  existence,  resides  in  him  physically,  inasmuch  as 
He  made  him  and  sustains  him.  And  if,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  moral  freedom  which  divine  goodness 
has  made  his  inalienable  birthright,  it  is  not  possible 
for  God  to  be  In  him  as  the  originator  of  his  vio- 
lence and  injustice,  He  is,  nevertheless,  present  in 
his  providences.  In  other  words,  He  is  present  in 
the  arrangement  and  issue  of  events,  which  at  that 
particular  moment,  in  distinction  from  any  other 
moment  and  any  other  circumstances,  presents  the 
man  before  us.  He  practically  brings  him  into  our 
presence  with  all  the  evidences  of  his  rebellion  and 
wickedness;  the  man  is  where  he  is  because  God 
directs  him  to  be  there  ;  and  He  does  it,  in  all  prob- 
ability, in  order  that  this  wicked  man  may  HERE 
and  Now,  under  the  overshadowings  of  the  divine 
moment,' be  judged  and  condemned;  and  that,  if  it 


304  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

be  possible,  he  may  be  made  anew  and  saved.  And 
this  last  is  done,  and  possibly  it  is  the  special  and 
great  object  which  God  had  in  view  in  his  provi- 
dences, first,  by  the  manifestation  of  God  in  our  own 
consciousness  in  feelings  of  which  He  is  the  author, 
and  also  by  outward  signs  and  words  expressive  of 
the  inward  feelings,  given  forth  by  the  divine  power 
within  us  in  the  divine  moment.  So  that  we  stand 
up  in  the  presence  of  this  or  any  other  form  of  wick- 
edness, and  we  stand  there  in  a  great  divine  pur- 
pose, in  the  outward  manifestation  of  the  inward 
Christ,  or  if  any  one  prefers  it,  of  the  inward  Christ 
spirit,  in  patience  and  forbearance,  in  meekness  and 
pity,  with  kind  words  for  words  of  violence,  and 
with  love  for  hatred.  And  thus  looking  for  God, 
finding  Him,  not  thousands  of  miles  off  in  place  and 
thousands  of  years  hence  in  time,  but  as  He  is  re- 
vealed in  the  correlated  and  correspondent  facts 
and  incidents  of  each  successive  moment,  we  shall 
know  experimentally  that  He  becomes  now,  and 
that,  in  the  continuous  application  and  issue  of  this 
great  principle,  He  becomes  always,  a  presence  and 
a  power,  a  source  of  goodness  to  ourselves  and  of 
goodness  to  others,  and  with  a  recognized  dwelling- 
place,  which  has  its  center  in  our  own  hearts  and  its 
circumference  in  the  objects  and  events,  including 
their  necessary  relations,  which  the  present  moment 


LOCALITY  OF  GOD  AND  DIVINE  MOMENT.     305 

reveals.  Such  to  finite  beings  is  the  true  locality 
of  God.  Previously  to  this  time  and  the  instruc- 
tions of  this  experience,  I  had  intellectually  learned 
and  known  this  great  principle  and  law  of  the  divine 
presence.  But  in  consequence  of  the  unfavorable 
influence  of  early  habits  of  thought  and  feeling,  it 
became  necessary  to  restore  both  the  vividness  of 
the  inward  conviction,  and  to  readjust  and  intensify 
it  as  a  rule  of  life.  And  it  was  for  this,  so  far  as  I 
was  led  to  understand  it,  that  I  was  led  into  the 
desert.  And  it  was  thus,  that  losing  God  in  one  di- 
rection, I  found  Him  in  another;  and  have  learned, 
that,  if  I  am  faithful  to  these  instructions,  and  will 
not  get  out  of  His  way  as  He  confronts  me  in  the 
mighty  march  of  time  and  events,  I  can  nevermore 
lose  Him. 

In  connection  with  what  has  been  said,  we  stop 
at  this  point  to  make  a  remark  in  relation  to  inte- 
rior solitude,  and  what  is  known  in  experimental 
writers  of  the  earliest  ages  as  inward  aridness  or  vas- 
tation.  Such  a  state  is  not  without  its  benefits.  In 
ancient  Egypt,  amid  its  wealth  and  intellectual  ad- 
vancement, the  Hebrews  learned  much ;  they  be- 
came masters,  like  the  people  among  whom  they 
dwelt,  of  arts  and  letters,  of  which  their  own  re- 
corded history  is  a  proof;  but  the  arts  they  learned 
and  the  knowledge  they  acquired,  were  worldly  arts 


306  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

and  worldly  knowledge.  In  the  terrible  desert, 
through  which  they  were  led  when  they  came  out 
of  Egypt,  they  obtained  knowledge  of  a  different 
kind,  knowledge  of  a  higher  aspect  and  character, 
and  far  more  valuable.  Accordingly  in  reading  their 
travels  through  the  desert,  we  feel  that  we  are  read- 
ing, if  we  are  interiorly  enlightened,  the  travels  of 
the  human  heart ;  that  we  are  becoming  acquainted 
with  the  mighty  pilgrimage  of  the  soul ;  its  liability 
to  error,  its  temptations,  its  sorrows,  its  progress  in 
knowledge  and  goodness  ;  and  also  the  divine  rela- 
tions which  exist  between  the  lawgiver  and  those 
under  the  law,  and  the  difference  between  the  life 
moulded  by  obedience  to  law  and  the  disordered 
and  ruined  life  which  is  the  result  of  its  violation. 
The  Hebrews  learned  as  much  and  probably  much 
more,  certainly  much  more  that  was  valuable,  during 
their  pilgrimage  of  forty  years  in  the  desert,  than 
during  their  four  hundred  years  of  residence  among 
the  most  enlightened  people  which  the  world  had  ever 
seen.  Can  we  not  say  then  that  the  voice  of  wis- 
dom found  an  utterance  in  the  wilderness  ?  And  so 
in  the  solitudes  and  deserts  of  the  spirit,  when  in- 
teriorly we  are  led  away  from  the  land  of  flowers  to 
the  rude  habitations  of  the  sands  and  rocks,  the 
land  where  smiles  are  exotics  and  joy  is  a  stranger, 
there  remains   to  us,  nevertheless,  much  of  inward 


LOCALITY  OF  GOD  AND  DLVIXE  MOMEXT. 


307 


compensation.  It  is  not  without  "a  great  purpose, 
that  our  bruised  and  bleeding  feet  are  smitten  upon 
the  rocks.  The  voice  of  wisdom  is  heard  in  the 
desolate  wilderness  of  the  soul.  Such  is  the  teach- 
ing of  national  history.  Such  is  the  testimony,  also, 
of  the  deeply  interior  men  of  all  ages  ;  of  Moses 
and  Elijah  ;  of  Christ,  when  led  into  the  wilderness 
to  be  tempted  of  satan ;  of  John  the  Baptist,  whose 
rugged  nature  found  a  congeniality  with  desolation 
within  and  desolation  without ;  of  St.  Jerome,  and 
of  Augustine,  as  recorded  in  his  confessions ;  of 
Tauler,  the  philosopher,  mystic,  and  revivalist  of  the 
middle  ages ;  of  St.  John  of  the  Cross,  one  of  the 
great  explorers  of  the  spiritual  wilderness ;  of  John 
Bunyan,  the  outward  and  inward  sufferer  and  great 
traveller  in  interior  lands ;  of  George  Fox  and  Wil- 
liam Perm  ;  of  many  of  the  leaders  and  followers  in 
the  Protestant  Reformation  ;  of  the  early  Methodists 
and  Puritans ;  of  all  in  all  nations  and  of  all  names, 
who  have  neither  the  power  nor  the  inclination  to  go 
to  heaven  on  "  flowery  beds  of  ease." 

But  returning  from  the  method  of  learning  to  the 
things  which  have  been  taught,  we  proceed  further 
to  say,  that  one  of  the  marked  things  of  this  form 
of  experience,  which  we  will  characterize  now  as 
LIVING  BY  THE  MOMEXT,  is,  that  it  is  infinitely 
varied.     Change,  which  is  evidently  incidental  to  the 


30g  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

great  fact  of  growth  or  progression,  is  one  of  the 
great  necessities  of  existence.  It  is  moreover  one 
of  those  things,  which  in  any  true  philosophy  of  the 
universe,  will  be  found  to  lie  at  the  foundation  of 
the  great  problem  of  what  constitutes  the  highest 
amount  of  human  happiness,  and  in  what  way  such 
happiness  shall  be  realized.  Meeting  God  in  the 
moment  of  God,  which  is  necessarily  the  present 
moment,  we  shall  meet  Him  always  the  same  but 
always  new  ;  always  unchanged  in  his  essence,  but 
changing  always  in  his  incidents.  The  divine  mo- 
ment, lifting  as  it  emerges  into  being  the  veil  that 
rests  upon  forms  and  places  and  actions  and  events, 
opens  that  little  eyelid  of  eternity,  and  reveals  God, 
not  in  a  perpetual  identity  of  manifestation  which 
would  tire  our  perception  and  annul  our  growth,  but 
in  all  possible  varieties.  He  stands  before  us  some- 
times in  the  storm  and  sometimes  in  the  sunshine ; 
sometimes  in  the  waste  howling  wilderness,  and 
sometimes  in  the  field  of  flowers;  in  the  palace  and 
the  prison,  in  friendship  and  enmity  ;  in  joy  and 
sorrow.  And  thus  He  is  always  revealing,  step  by 
step,  in  harmony  with  the  nature  and  extent  of  our 
own  capacities,  the  infinitudes  of  existence  ;  and  al- 
ways affording  new  elements  of  knowledge,  new 
tests  of  strength,  and  new  foundations  and  applian- 
ces of  growth  and  happiness. 


* LOCALITY  OF  GOD  AND  DIVINE  MOMENT.     309 

And  it  may  further  be  remarked  as  something 
worthy  of  notice,  and  as  closely  connected  with 
what  has  just  been  said,  that  those  who  live  in  the 
divine  moment  arc  relieved  in  a  great  degree  from 
the  perplexity  of  conjectures  and  calculations,  and 
cannot  be  said,  in  the  usual  sense  of  the  terms,  to 
have  plans  of  action.  It  is  certain  that  they  do  not 
'have  any,  in  the  unconditioned  or  absolute  sense. 
Being  in  harmony  inwardly  and  outwardly  with  the 
facts  of  the  present  moment,  it  is  the  law  of  their 
condition,  that  they  shall  do  the  work  which  it  is 
given  them  to  do.  Under  the  mastery  of  the  pres- 
ent, they  see  the  objects  that  are  now  before  them  ; 
they  obey  the  orders  which  are  now  given ;  and  ac- 
complish wnat  now  is,  and  nothing  else. 

It  is  impossible  that  the  man  who  lives  thus 
sl'ould  have  any  plans  which  are  exclusively  his 
own  ;  any  plans  which  are  separate  from  the  pur- 
pose and  the  will  of  God.  He  cannot  be  in  har- 
mony with  the  present  moment  without  being  in 
harmony  with  the  will  of  God,  as  manifested  in  the 
present  moment ;  and  the  divine  will,  thus  mani- 
fested, necessarily  constitues  the  condition  to  which 
all  his  actions  and  plans  of  action  are  subordinated. 
So  that  it  can  justly  be  said  in  this  view  of  things, 
that  the  mind  of  the  Infinite  is  substituted  for  his 
own,  and  that  God  plans  for  him.     Submitting  his 


nJ0  ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 

own  wisdom  to  the  higher  wisdom  which  is  from 
above,  he  can  say  in  the  spirit  of  Christ,  whose 
plan  of  action  was  established  in  eternity  and  was 
unchangeable,  that  he  "  comes  to  do  the  will  of  the 
Father  who  sent  him." 

And  hence  it  is  that  one  great  sign  of  the  prac- 
tical recognition  of  the  "  divine  moment  "  and  of 
our  finding  God's  habitation  in  it,  is  constant  calm- 
ness and  peace  of  mind.  Events  and  things  come 
with  the  moment  ;  but  God  comes  with  them  too. 
And  He  comes,  written  all  over  with  the  divinity 
of  wisdom  and  the  glory  of  the  promises.  So  that 
if  He  comes  in  the  sunshine,  we  find  rest  and  joy ; 
and  if  He  comes  in  the  storm,  we  know  He  is  King 
of  the  storms,  and  our  hearts  are  not  troubled. 
God  himself,  though  possessing  a  heart  filled  with 
the  tenderest  feelings,  is,  nevertheless,  an  everlast- 
ing tranquillity ;  and  when  we  enter  into  His  holy 
tabernacle,  his  great  movable  tent,  which  is  travel- 
ling here  and  there  under  the  shifting  footsteps  of 
moment  added  to  moment,  our  souls  necessarily  en- 
ter into  the  tabernacle  of  rest. 

And  let  it  be  added  here,  that  the  doctrine  of 
living  by  the  moment  suggests  one  of  the  prepara- 
tory conditions,  and  furnishes  in  part,  a  philosophi- 
cal explanation  of  the  great  doctrine  of  inward 
inspiration.     Inspiration,  looking  at   the  fact  of  the 


LOCALITY  OF  GOD  AND  DIVINE  MOMENT.      <$n 

thing  as  well  as  the  etymology  of  the  term,  is  the 
in-breathing  or  the  in-flowing  of  the  Infinite  into 
the  finite.  And  if  we  stand  in  the  openings  of  the 
present  moment,  with  all  the  length  and  breadth  of 
our  faculties  unselfishly  adjusted  to  what  it  reveals, 
we  arc  in  the  best  condition  to  receive  what  God  is 
always  ready  to  communicate.  So  that  there  is  not 
merely  a  dogmatical  affirmation,  which  is  to  be  be- 
lieved solely  because  it  is  affirmed,  but  an  interior 
and  divine  philosophy  in  those  suggestive  and  spir- 
itual words  of  Jesus  :  "  And  when  they  bring  you 
unto  the  synagogues,  and  unto  magistrates  and 
powers,  take  ye  no  thought  how  or  what  thing  ye 
shall  answer  or  what  ye  shall  say;  for  the  Holy 
Ghost  shall  teach  you  in  the  same  hour  what  ye 
ought  to  say." 

Each  moment  of  time  is  one  of  the  successive 
and  separate  letters  of  the  alphabet,  which  go  to 
make  up  the  great  book  of  eternity.  And  eternity 
being  the  sum  of  all  moments,  and  therefore  the  res- 
idence or  locality  of  God  in  the  higher  sense,  we  are 
thus  learning  the  letters  of  that  book  in  which  will 
be  written  out  all  truths  of  the  Infinite,  and  all 
truths  and  destinies  for  ourselves.  To  lose  a  mo- 
ment by  being  out  of  harmony  with  the  facts  and 
requisitions  of  the  moment,  is  to  lose  a  letter  out  of 
the  great  book,  and  thus  to  lose  something  of  its 
14 


312 


ABSOLUTE  RELIGION. 


infinite  and  eternal  meanings.  It  was  thus  that 
God  taught  me  while  I  was  in  the  spiritual  wilder- 
ness. I  was  thus  enabled  to  see,  and  perhaps  more 
clearly  than  others  will  be  likely  to  do,  who  have 
not  passed  through  the  same  inward  history,  why 
He  shut  the  old  gateways  and  vistas  of  spiritual 
knowledge,  which  were  suited  to  the  beginnings  of 
inward  experience,  and  required  me  to  meet  with 
Him  and  to  dwell  with  Him  in  the  Eternal  Now. 
It  w^as  one  of  the  lessons  of  the  desert ;  but  the 
desert,  I  mean  the  spiritual  desert,  is  one  of  the 
school-houses  of  the  soul.  And  as  soon  as  I  had 
learned  the  lesson,  which  it  seems  to  have  been  the 
object  of  the  school  of  the  desert  to  teach,  the 
cloud  was  gradually  lifted  ;  the  sunshine  came  down 
upon  the  rocks ;  the  sands  and  pebbles  grew  up  into 
flowers ;  I  found  the  shepherd  sitting  beside  the 
still  waters;  and  I  came  up  out  of  the  entangle- 
ments of  the  wilderness  into  a  firmer  position  and  a 
clearer  light  than  I  had  ever  known  before. 


THE  END. 


n'mi'ni  iThe°'09lcal  Seminary-Speer 


1    1012  0101 


2  5039 


